China Telecom, which is in the process of taking over China Unicom's CDMA network has issued tenders for a network expansion - with the initial contracts expected to be awarded within a few weeks. The key aim of the contract is to increase coverage areas rather than boost the quality of service in areas already under CDMA coverage.

Industry sources told the South China Morning Post that the contracts are expected to be worth around US$4 billion. "The contract size is bigger than my estimation," said Frederick Wong, a telecoms analyst at BNP Paribas told the newspaper.

Figures from the Mobile World database show that China Unicom ended Q1 '08 with just under 43 million CDMA subscribers - and a recent study from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology expects that figure to reach at least 64 million by 2012. China Telecom had originally anticipated a subscriber base of no more than 100 million by 2012.

Source: South China Morning Post