@ CTIA: China Telecom looks to tap wireline advantage for wireless growth

ORLANDO, Fla. – Perhaps showing the international importance of the CTIA event, China Telecom Corp. Ltd. (CHA) EVP Yang Jie participated in the Day 2 keynote where he extolled the carrier’s plans to bolster its wireless offering as well as the growing potential in the Chinese mobile market.
Jie noted that China Telecom has managed to grow its current CDMA-based operations from less than 30 million customers when it acquired the assets in late 2008 to more than 100 million customers. The carrier has also increased its network density from 88,000 cell sites to more than 216,000 cell sites.
It’s also looking to further strengthen the ties between its mobile operations and its dominate wireline service in an attempt to broaden its service offering to consumers. Jie noted this will include a large investment in cloud-based services that can tie together wireline and wireless services as well as initiatives based on the “Internet of things” mantra for having everything literally connected to the Internet in one way or another.
As for the future of its CDMA-based wireless network, Jie said the carrier was looking to begin rolling out LTE services as its next-generation migration path, but did not provide details on the upgrade.
China Telecom remains the country’s third largest mobile operator following China Mobile (CHL) and China Unicom.