China has been saying it would introduce 3G since the beginning of the decade but faced huge obstacles. Chief among these was its lopsided telecoms industry, dominated by China Mobile, in which Vodafone has a small stake. Restructuring has since carved up the market into three players. The 3G licences will further redress the balance: licences will be apportioned to give its competitors a technological advantage. Thus China Mobile, which has 450m subscribers, will be stuck with China's homegrown TD-SCDMA technology. Its smaller peers will, meanwhile, adopt proved international standards, like WCDMA.
自本世紀初以來，中國一直在說它將推出3G服務，但以往面臨一些巨大障礙。其中主要障礙在于電信業由中國移動(China Mobile)一家主導(沃達豐(Vodafone)持有中國移動少量股份)。經過重組后，該市場已劃分給三家運營商。3G牌照將有助于進一步調整平衡：這些牌照的分配方式意味著，中國移動的競爭對手將擁有技術優勢。也就是說，擁有4.5億用戶的中國移動將只能采用中國自主開發的TD-SCDMA技術，而其規模較小的業內同行將采用WCDMA之類經過驗證的國際技術。