China Mobile Abandons WiFi Rollout

Having built out a network of 4.3 million hotspots at a cost of 17 billion Yuan Renminbi (US$2.75 billion), China Mobile has put a halt to its WiFi deployments because the economics don't stack up.

Instead, China Mobile Ltd. (NYSE: CHL) is directing all its resources towards its 4G TDD LTE network rollout, and is on course to have rolled out more than 500,000 basestations in 300 cities by the end of 2014. (See China Issues 4G TDD Licences.)

Meanwhile, China Telecom Corp. Ltd. (NYSE: CHA), which has only just been handed its FDD LTE license, is forging ahead with its WiFi access point deployments. (See China Issues More 4G Licenses.)

For the full story, see this blog by Light Reading's Hong Kong-based contributing editor, Robert Clark.

— Ray Le Maistre, , Editor-in-Chief, Light Reading