电信三巨头的4G之争

It has been a month since China Mobile officially opened its 4G network for business use. Luo Xiao is among the first batch of 4G subscribers to try out the new highspeed network.

"The 4G service is very fast, it is even faster than my broadband internet at home. Previously, when I bought something online via my mobile phone, it took ages for me to make the payment. But now I can make the payment in a blink of an eye."

China Mobile says its 4G network can offer a download speed up to 100 to 150 megabits per second, which is over ten times the speed of 3G. China Mobile, which lagged behind in the 3G competition, had invested heavily in 4G - even before the authorities issued 4G licenses to the three major telecom operators in December. The company installed 4G services in 16 cities through 2013. China Mobile has a goal of expanding its network to at least 340 cities by the end of this year.

Meanwhile, China Unicom, which has the largest 3G network in the country, as well as China Telecom, have yet to announce their 4G plans. In its December report, China Unicom registered a loss of 170-thousand new users month on month. China Telecom has recorded a staggering 300 percent slump in the number of new users it brought in through December.

Bryan Wang, a principal analyst with Forrester Research, says China Mobile's speedy 4G network expansion may prove to be a challenge for both Unicom and Telecom.

"Before it got the license, in the past four to five years, China Mobile had already invested a huge amount in developing TD-LTE or 4G technology. With such early preparation, it is well-positioned to challenge Unicom and Telecom. Although Unicom and Telecom are starting to invest in 4G technology, compared with China Mobile, their investment has come a bit too little, too late. So the next 12 to 24 months will be China Mobile's solo show in the 4G service."

However, at its preliminary stage, the 4G service still falls a bit short of its promises.Meng Ping has used the service for a month. He says one of his biggest problems is getting 4G service.

"The signal coverage is not good enough. The 4G signal is strong only in certain places. When the signal is weak, it will automatically switch back to 3G or 2G. Sometimes when I make phone calls where the 4G signal is weak, I have to wait for two to three seconds to be connected on the line."

Meng also says he believes the service is too expensive at the moment.

Currently, China Mobile offers monthly packages ranging from 138 yuan to 338 yuan. For the 138 yuan package, the internet capacity is only 600 megabits per month.

Despite the higher than expected price, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology is forecasting the total 4G investment in China will reach 100 billion yuan by the end of this year.

For CRI, I'm Jordan Lee.