Chinese regulator MIIT has given the green light for China Telecom to re-farm its 800MHz spectrum for 5G.

The second biggest Chinese telco now joins its two rivals in being able to access highly desirable sub-1GHz spectrum, which provides much greater coverage and propagation than mid-band and millimeter wave frequencies.

The decision was seen as inevitable since China Unicom was given the right to re-farm its 900MHz 2G spectrum last November.

Market leader China Mobile is already deploying on the 700MHz band through its partnership with China Broadnet, the cable TV industry-backed newcomer which has owned the valuable digital dividend spectrum since 2016.

MIIT said in a statement that it wanted "to improve the coverage quality of 5G in towns, rural areas and remote areas, and increase the support of radio spectrum resources for the high-quality development of 5G."

As of June 30, the four operators had deployed 2.9 million 5G basestations, accounting for around 60% of the world's total, according to the ministry. However, Chinese authorities have never disclosed just how much of the population is covered by the 5G rollout or how many basestations are in rural areas.

$49 billion capex in 2023

The availability of fresh spectrum for China Telecom's 5G won't spur a fresh burst of network construction. Rather it will allow cash already set aside to be spent on building 800MHz infrastructure outside urban areas.

The three operators have allocated 359 billion Chinese yuan (US$49.2 billion) for capex in 2023.

China Telecom has said it will spend RMB99 billion ($13.6 billion), up 7% over last year, with 32% going to 5G.

Table 1: Chinese telcos' spectrum holdings

China Mobile and China Unicom have not indicated how much they expect to allocate to 5G in 2023, but it accounted for 52% of China Mobile's spending in 2022, while Unicom spent 49% of its 2021 capex budget on mobile.

China Telecom was awarded the 800MHz frequencies for its cdma2000 network in 2007. It was permitted to re-farm the spectrum for its 4G network in 2016.

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— Robert Clark, contributing editor, special to Light Reading