Service providers

It was a touch time for the wireless service providers in the past years because of strict government rules and limited mobile Internet speed.

Now 3G will greatly boost the data transfer speed about 200 times on average compared with 2G. The high speed will solve the major bottleneck of the service provider business.

"The 3G is a turning point of our industry and more users are willing to surf online through the handset," said Wang Leilei, chairman and chief executive of Kongzhong.com.

Kongzhong.com will develop more entertainment services in its platform this year when the 3G networks will be able to support transfers of huge data speedily, Wang said.

It gives service providers a huge room to develop services, from video call to film download. Videos will become popular on the phone screen, Deng Yuqiang, CEO of 3G.cn, forecast.

Carriers

Telcos like China Unicom and China Telecom won't launch their 3G services in the next several months although they have the licenses.

China Mobile announced it had attracted about 400,000 TD-SCDMA users since it started trial services on that 3G standard in April. Comparatively, China Mobile's 2G networks added about 6 to 7 million new users in a single month, 15 times the new 3G user base in eight months.

The telcos face a dilemma as they earn money via the 2G networks but they spend most funds on developing the 3G network and service, which is losing money currently.

(Shanghai Daily January 9, 2009)