3 major operators invest nearly CNY 100 billion in 4G in 2015

CATR (China Academy of Telecommunication Research) held the “Large Public Lecture on ICT Industry views and White Paper Conference” in Beijing on December 25th to announce major annual research results.

Li Shan, vice chairman of the wireless and mobile segment of CATR, said that the 4G network scale is growing continuously and steadily. According to statistics of GSA, 147 countries have deployed 442 LTE commercial networks by September 2015. However, there exists great difference between the regions with the coverage rate of 19.4 percent in developing countries and 91 percent in developed countries.

China keeps constructing 4G network infrastructure rapidly, the 4G investment has reached CNY 90 billion in 2015 and 4G base stations has reached 1.5 million, the number of which is more than half the number of global 4G base stations and China’s 4G networks become the best in the world.

China Mobile has invested CNY 55.7 billion in TD-LTE and constructed over 1 million TD-LTE base stations by August 2015, including 779,000 macro base stations and 224,000 indoor distributed base stations; China Unicom has invested CNY 12.6 billion in 4G and constructed over 213,000 4G base stations including 203,000 FDD LTE base stations and 10,000 TDD LTE base stations; China Telecom has invested CNY 22.97 billion in 4G and constructed 24,000 outdoor TD-LTE base stations, 250,000 outdoor LTE FDD base stations and 85,000 indoor distribution systems.