China has 7.14 lakh 3G towers for 73.76 million subscribers

BEIJING: Giving a big thrust to 3G services in the country, China had set up 714,000 3G mobile phone towers across the country till the end of May this year, even as the subscriber base for the services raced to 73.76 million.

China had set up about 714,000 3G mobile phone towers by the end of May this year, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said on Monday.

Ownership of the 3G towers is almost equally divided between the country's three leading mobile phone services providers.

China Mobile owns 214,000, China Telecom owns 226,000 and China Unicom owns 274,000, according to a statement on MIIT's website.

The number of Chinese 3G users had topped 73.76 million by the end of May, it said, adding that 43 per cent of China's 3G users also use TD-based mobile phone services.

Third-generation or 3G mobile telecommunications is a generation of standards for mobile phones and mobile telecommunication services such as mobile Internet access, video calls and mobile TV.

TD, or TD-SCDMA (Time Division-Synchronous Code Division Multiple Access) is a 3G standard created by China that serves as an alternative to Europe's WCDMA standard and America's CDMA2000 standard.