Restructuring for China's telecoms industry

The Chinese government has said it's going to restructure its telecoms industry. Current rules prevent fixed-line operators from offering mobile services and vice versa. There'll be a number of mergers and swaps, resulting in more competition for state-owned China Mobile, which currently has over two-thirds of the country's mobile phone customers. The government has also said it'll start issuing 3G licences. There are currently around 600 million mobile phone users in China. [Sources: ChinaTechNews.com; BBC News; Chinese government announcement]