10:15 AM -- Intense competition in the 3G market and the anticipated introduction of new players into the broadband sector are expected to lead China's three main operators to focus their 2012 spending on more advanced mobile broadband access and fiber-based fixed access systems, reports CapitalVue.

Taking projections from various analysts, the report suggests that the combined capex budgets of China Mobile Ltd. (NYSE: CHL), China Telecom Corp. Ltd. (NYSE: CHA) and China Unicom Ltd. (NYSE: CHU) will be more than 300 billion yuan renminbi (US$47.6 billion) in 2012.

How much?

If that figure is in any way accurate, then it blows the projections made by ABI Research out of the water (in a good way). The research house issued a press release in late January estimating that the Asia/Pacific capex total in 2012 (including China as well as Japan, South Korea and other markets) would go up by 5.7 percent to $58.8 billion.

If the Chinese carriers alone get anywhere close to $47 billion in spending this year then ABI's figure would need to head north by quite some way.

If Asia/Pac's capex is hitting the up ramp and North American carrier purses get loosened soon, as predicted late Monday, then 2012 might prove a better year than expected for the vendor fraternity. (See Carrier Capex Could Rebound Quickly.)

I notice, though, that no-one is expecting a major ramp in European capex and it's much harder to imagine that's going to happen any time soon.

— Ray Le Maistre, International Managing Editor, Light Reading