China has opened up the prospect for private sector competition in its national mobile telecoms market, with a consultation about whether big state-controlled carriers should be allowed to sell some of their spectrum holdings to other groups.
The Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said this week that it was looking for views on proposals to allow the three state-backed groups to begin re-selling spectrum that could be used for rival telecoms services.
The mobile market in the country, the biggest in the world by subscribers, is divided up by three groups –China Telecom, China Unicom and China Mobile. China Telecom and China Unicom also operate fixed-line businesses.