China has hugely restructured its telecommunications industry to pave the way for a roll-out of 3G technology.

The country's second largest mobile phone operator, China Unicom, sold 43.17m of its subscribers to China Telecom, a fixed-line operator, for 110bn renminbi (£8.12bn). At the same time, Unicom and China Netcom, a fixed-line operator that covers much of southern China, merged to create a company worth £30.2bn.

The deal means that China will have three mobile phone operators rather than two when it rolls out 3G, and that two of those will also have a fixed-line business. China Mobile, the world's largest mobile phone operator with 380m subscribers, is the only standalone mobile company.

"The ministry of information industry has promised that it will grant the 3G licences after the restructuring is complete, probably at the end of this year or the beginning of the next," said Steven Liu, an analyst at DBS Vickers in Hong Kong.

Source:telegraph