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China Telecom launches 4G phones, services in 16 cities

2014-07-16 08:42 Shanghai Daily Web Editor: Qin Dexing
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China Telecom launched 4G phones and services yesterday in 16 cities nationwide including Shanghai, the company said.

The company is now selling 15 4G models made by firms like Huawei and Coolpad. About 75 4G models are expected to be available by the end of this year, according to the Shanghai branch of China Telecom. It costs users 49 yuan (US$7.89) to 599 yuan each month for various packages. It also charges users 30 yuan per 500 megabytes over a package limit. Data-only packages starting from 49 yuan each month, which includes 2 gigabytes of local data traffic, are also available.

"Low entry-level, big traffic and more choices are the advantages of China Telecom's 4G services," said Ma Yimin, Shanghai Telecom's general manager.

China Telecom's 4G phone numbers start with the digits "177" although users can subscribe to new 4G services with their existing number.

Its 4G network covers 90 percent of the city although the company plans to increase it to 98 percent by the end of next year at a cost of about 4 billion yuan.

Unlike rivals China Mobile and China Unicom, China Telecom offers customers combined 4G phone and broadband services. It has more than 5 million family broadband users with over a 90 percent market share in Shanghai.

Xi'an, Chengdu, Hangzhou, Wuhan and Nanjing were among the cities where 4G services were launched two weeks after receiving a license from the industry regulator.

China Mobile launched 4G services at the end of last year based on China-developed TD-LTE (time division-long term evolution). China Telecom's FDD-LTE technology is more mature because it has been used in other countries like the US, UK and South Korea for several years.

During a Pudong New Area demo yesterday, users downloaded a song within seconds and a 90-minute high definition movie in less than one minute with China Telecom's 4G network.

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