China Mobile is reported to have selected nine equipment vendors to support its rollout of 4G services, which is likely to see contracts issued with a combined value of CNY20 billion ($3.27 billion).

According to Telecom Asia, successful international bidders were Ericsson, NSN and Alcatel-Lucent (via its local arm), alongside domestic players Huawei, ZTE, Datang Mobile, FiberHome Technologies, Potevio and New Postcom.

Details of the successful smaller domestic vendors follows a Reuters report late last month claiming that the bulk of the contracts have gone to Huawei and ZTE (around 25 per cent each), with the foreign players combined getting about a third of the total.

Together, the companies will buildout a network covering 31 provinces with 207,000 TD-LTE base stations.

The China Mobile deal is significant because of its size, which will enable some infrastructure vendors which have been struggling with a sluggish market to post new growth.

While the Chinese government has yet to issue its 4G licences, this is expected imminently. Having lagged its rivals in the 3G stakes, China Mobile is looking to lead the way with its next-generation technology.

The world’s biggest operator has already undertaken widespread trials of TD-LTE technology, which it is set to use for its 4G network.

Rival China Unicom, which is generally backing the more widely-deployed FDD-LTE version of the 4G technology, recently said it is set to begin TD-LTE pilots, in the belief that the government will favour this flavour of the technology when licences are issued.

China Telecom is also believed to be eyeing a hybrid approach. TelecomAsia said that this company is believed to have sent out tender documents to ten companies including the nine picked by China Mobile for its trial deployments.