According to China Telecom's (CHA) Beijing branch, the company will launch the new 3G business at the end of February 2009.
A representative from China Telecom Beijing reveals that by the end of February, the speed of China Telecom's CDMA wireless access will be increased from the current 153.6 kilobytes to 3.1 megabytes for downlink rate and 1.8 megabytes for the uplink rate. At that time, the CDMA2000 handsets will be able to support special 3G services like video calls and high-speed Internet surfing.
China Telecom Beijing explains that to provide more convenience to China Telecom's 3G users, the company will implement a "Three Nos" plan, including no change of mobile phone numbers, no change of SIM cards, and no registrations.
With this plan, users do not need to change the mobile phone numbers or SIM cards they used on their 2G mobile phones. They can simply insert their former SIM cards into the new CDMA2000 mobile phone and maintain their original numbers. In addition, if the network can identify which 2G users have switched to the 3G network, the users do not need to go to the business halls of China Telecom for registration.