China Mobile Planning Final $6.7 Billion Push to Launch 4G in 344 Cities This Year

Despite a lack of regulatory approval yet, the world’s biggest mobile telco by user-base, China Mobile (NYSE:CHL; HKG:0941) is said to be ready to make a massive final push to get the infrastructure in place to launch China’s first national 4G network later this year. According to informed sources cited by QQ Tech, China Mobile will invest RMB 41.7 billion (US$6.7 billion) to build 200,000 base stations that will cover 344 Chinese cities this year.

Regulatory approval is said to be announced on May 17th, with China Mobile hoping to switch on its nationwide 4G network this August.

China Mobile has been conducting extensive city-area 4G trials for over a year, most recently in the cities of Hangzhou and Wenzhou on the outskirts of Shanghai.

Whereas China Mobile will use the TD-LTE system for 4G (also known as TDD-LTE), rivals China Unicom and China Telecom will have FDD-LTE networks. But that means China Mobile’s network doesn’t work with any of Apple’s mobile devices, initially leaving the new service – as with the company’s homegrown TD-SCDMA 3G variant – devoid of support for iPhones or iPads (except basic calling, texting, and 2G of course).

China Mobile is rumored to have already selected eight companies to serve as initial network equipment partners, including Huawei, ZTE, Ericsson, and Nokia Siemens (Update: Corrected that they’re not providing handsets).

With relatively small numbers coming from 4G networks in nations like Japan and Singapore, one research group estimates there’ll only be about 72 million people on LTE networks in Asia by the end of this year. But China, pushing ahead faster than the previously anticipated 2014 launch, could bring a big bump to that number.

Across China’s three telcos, there are over 230 million subscribers on 3G (Update: Corrected this figure).

(Source: QQ Tech – article in Chinese)