More rumours of China Unicom split

THE RUMOUR MILL has been working overtime concerning the imminent split of China's second biggest mobile operator, China Unicom. The latest twist follows remarks made by Wang Xiaochu, former head of China Mobile and now heading up China Telecom.

Wang gave credence to suggestions that Unicom might be divided up that Telecom along with its rival fixed line operator, China Netcom, should be allowed to buy Unicom and then divide it up on a geographical basis. Telecom and Netcom were created by dividing the former fixed line monopoly up - one taking the North and the other the South.

Wang's view goes against a more logical split, which had been previously suggested, that Unicom's two networks - one CDMA and the other GSM - would be separated with China Telecom getting the GSM network and Netcom the CDMA one.

It would seem logical to let the fixed line operators get the upper hand since both mobile and IP world's are fast trying to convert over to an all-IP future.

The manoeuvring almost certainly has to do with what 3G licences (and which technologies) the Chinese authorities will eventually authorise. µ