Shanghai's third-generation, or 3G, mobile phone network now covers 98 percent of the downtown area.

This means residents in Shanghai will have access to high-speed data services, such as mobile television, in time for Friday's opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games.

Yesterday, China Mobile's Shanghai branch began offering short-term TD-SCDMA (time division-synchronous code division multiple access) handset-rental services for foreigners and visitors from other cities.

Visitors can rent the service by presenting a passport or identity card and pay 10 yuan per day for a TD-SCDMA phone.

Shanghai Mobile invested heavily to build 2,062 TD-SCDMA base stations by the end of June. The company, which started a trial TD-SCDMA business in Shanghai in April, had about 13 million mobile users in the city by June 30.

The carrier has launched a mobile-TV service, which will cost users a heavily discounted price of 0.01 yuan (0.15 US cents) for one megabyte of data during the Olympics.

The mobile-TV service also supports some 2G phone models, including those from Nokia, Dopod and Lenovo.

Shanghai Mobile has purchased equipment from Alcatel-Lucent to make its network support the full gamut of traffic, including high-speed Internet and video services, according to Alcatel Shanghai Bell, a subsidiary of the world's biggest telecommunications equipment maker.

"It (the project) helps us further differentiate in today's competitive marketplace and addresses the increased needs of data services and IP network transformation," Wan Guoguang, deputy general manager of Shanghai Mobile, said in a statement.

Shanghai Mobile's network upgrade will be completed in time for Games opening night, Alcatel Shanghai Bell said.

Industry insiders said China Mobile has to attract as many TD-SCDMA users as possible in a relatively short time.

Its rivals, China Unicom and China Telecom, will launch their 3G services at the completion of the national reorganization of the industry, which is expected by the end of the year.

China Telecom said yesterday it will finish the acquisition of China Unicom's CDMA business within 60 days of Oct. 1.

Source: Shanghai Daily