(Xinhua/Agencies)
Updated: 2007-12-28 14:28

China will push a long-waited reshuffle of the country's telecoms industry in 2008, creating players that operate both wireless and fixed-line services to address unbalanced competition, according to the industry's regulator. 

"Operating a single type of business not only goes against technology trends, it has also fostered serious imbalances in the telecoms industry's development," Wang Xudong, the minister of information industry, said on Thursday.

China has four major telecom operators -- China Telecom, China Netcom, China Mobile and China Unicom -- and each monopolizes one or two services.

An overhaul of the sector, dominated now by the four players that have evenly split mobile and traditional fixed-line services licenses between them, is also expected to precede the issuance of licenses to offer faster third-generation services, which will represent a boon for equipment vendors such as Motorola.

Industry sources have speculated for more than a year that the Chinese government intended to split up China Unicom's wireless networks and hand them off to fixed-line players China Telecom or China Netcom. But that, and other proposals have been dogged by infighting and local interests, the sources say.

Besides 3G, the country would focus on research and development of other key technologies such as those for core electron devices, high-end general chips and ultra-large integrated circuits, he said.

On Wednesday, the State Council approved a plan to develop the next-generation network, which analysts said was related to the third generation (3G) services.

The country is expanding the TD-SCDMA (Time Division Synchronous Code Division Multiple Access) network tests to prepare for 3G services during the Beijing Olympics next year.

The TD-SCDMA is a homegrown 3G technology standard. The other two types of CDMA technologies are the US standard, CDMA 2000, and the European WCDMA.

There was no timetable available yet for the issuance of 3G licenses, since relevant departments were still considering how the services would operate, but analysts said the homegrown standard was most likely to get the first license.

On the news of imminent 3G service, telecom shares surged, with China Unicom up by as much as 8.28 percent to 12.29 yuan (US$1.66) during Thursday's trading.

In a recent report, China's top economic planner said that the country should reorganize the four operators to require them to offer "full-range" services. This means major communication businesses such as fixed lines, internet access and mobile communication services would no longer be monopolized by one or two operators.

The report said such a reorganization would create a "relatively fair" market environment and benefit consumers.