China market: 3G network investments total over 102 billion yuan in January-October 2009

China Mobile Communications, China Telecom and China United Telecommunications (China Unicom) invested a total of 102.3 billion yuan (US$14.97 billion) in establishing their 3G infrastructure during January-October 2009, accounting for 71.3% of their 2009 capital expenditure budget of 143.5 billion yuan, according to China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT).

The three China telecom carriers had 9.77 million 3G subscribers in total as of the end of October, MIIT indicated.

China Telecom had set up 117,000 CDMA2000 base stations around China as of the end of October, followed by China Unicom with 80,000 WCDMA base stations and China Mobile with 46,000 TD-SCDMA base stations, MIIT said.

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