BEIJING, Jun. 17, 2010 (Xinhua News Agency) -- China Telecom's (00728.HK; CHA.NYSE), China's largest fixed-line telecom service provider by user number, will close its IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem) trial operation soon and start the nationwide IMS procurement in July at the earliest, according to an insider of the carrier.
China Telecom chose Jiangsu, Sichuan, Guangdong, Zhejiang and Fujian provinces and Shanghai municipality as the pilot regions of its IMS operation with differentiated focuses, such as the driving force of IMS service and evolution of network integration, which all achieved satisfactory results.
Five telecom equipment manufacturers, including Huawei Technologies, ZTE Corp. (OOTC:ZTCOY) , Nokia-Siemens (NYSE:NOK) , Alcatel Shanghai Bell and Ericsson (NASDAQ:ERICY) , are candidate firms of China Telecom's procurement.
China's all three telecom operators, namely China Mobile (00941.HK; CHL.NYSE), China Unicom (OOTC:CHUFF) (00762.HK; CHU.NYSE; 600050.SH) and China Telecom, paid keen attention to the development of IMS. China Mobile has finished the procurement of IMS equipment, and China Unicom has completed the first-phase field test of IMS. (Edited by Luo Jingjing, luojj@xinhua.org)
