The fixed is in for China Mobile

There’s been quite a bit of chatter in the Chinese media recently about China Mobile getting a fixed network licence.

The latest is that getting the licence is a foregone conclusion – the only question is when. The IT Times quotes a source close to the MIIT saying the department had made up its mind around Chinese New Year.

However, because of China Mobile’s dominance - it takes more than half of all China telecom revenues – the ministry is considering paying compensation to Telecom and Unicom.

China Mobile will likely have to wait until the new national cable firm, China Broadcast TV Network Company, owned by MIIT’s rival SARFT, is issued with its licence as part of the government's cable-telecom integration programme.

Then, as the IT Times puts it, the broadband market will become “a war between four kingdoms.”

Not to mention a badly-needed source of new income for optical suppliers. China Mobile last year issued a tender for 8m optical access lines. This year’s tender is said to be for more than 11 million lines.

The added competition is in service of the national goal of 370m fixed broadband connections by 2015, with 20Mbps for urban households and 4Mbps in the countryside. Currently China Telecom and Unicom have around 140m wireline broadband subs.

Under the terms of the 2008 industry restructure, in which the railways subsidiary China Tietong was sold to China Mobile’s parent, the mobile operator was banned from the broadband access market except using its TD-SCDMA network.

It is reportedly selling 6Mbps residential wireless broadband service in Shanghai for 150 yuan ($23.60) a month.