China Telecom Corp, the country's largest fixed-line operator, says it expects to launch mobile business as early as next month with the ambition to attract 100 million mobile phone users in three years, sources reported.

The announcement comes after China Unicom's shareholders approved the RMB 43.8 billion (HK$49.79 billion) sale of the CDMA business to the company on Tuesday.
 
China Telecom got nod from shareholders to lease the CDMA network from parent China Telecom Group and pay 28% of annual revenue from the business in return.

The company plans to roll out the marketing campaign for its mobile business in November under the Surfing brand.

China Telecom said earlier it intended to purchase 5 million CDMA handsets, as part of its plan of promoting its mobile services. The Chinese telecom carrier also aimed to make its network quality comparable to that of China Moble by 2009.

To fund its mobile operations, the fixed-line carrier had unveiled a plan to float up to RMB 80 billion bonds, of which RMB 20 billion fixed-rate bonds has been approved by the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) to be issued to both domestic retail and institutional investors as early as late September or the beginning of October.

 Source:China Knowledge