China’s three mobile carriers have created a new company, China Tower, which will take over ownership of the three firms’ telecom infrastructure while ambitiously planning to build 1 million new towers in the next two years.
Instead of the three companies individually building towers, the plan going forward is for China Tower to build towers for use by all three carriers.
China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom share the wireless market in that country. China Mobile is the largest of the three.
On July 11, the three firms created China Tower. China Mobile holds a 40% stake in the new telecom infrastructure company, while China Unicom and China Teleom split the remaining 60% stake.
There are already around 3.3 million base stations in China.
Based on company documents, China Tower will focus solely on “construction, maintenance and operation of telecommunications towers; also on construction, maintenance and operation of ancillary facilities including base station control rooms, power supplies and air conditioning as well as interior distribution systems; and provision of outsourced services of base station equipment maintenance.”
The asset value conferred to China Tower is valued at more than $16 billion.
The coming physical improvements to the network are meant to accommodate the expansion of 4G service. Meanwhile, China Mobile has already begun research and development into “5G” service.
