China Mobile has purchased 40,000 TD-SCDMA handsets from ZTE, Lenovo and Guangzhou New Postcom Equipment for use during this month’s Olympic Games, reports Dow Jones Newswires, citing regional news agency Xinhua. It was reported last week that the operator had issued a tender for the supply of such 3G handsets, which include mobile TV compatibility based on the China Mobile Multimedia Broadcasting standard. Yesterday Beijing TV announced the launch of mobile TV services in partnership with i-Vision, a week before the opening of the Games.

Meanwhile, according to China Business News, China Mobile has gained approval from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MII) to build TD-SCDMA networks in 28 cities after the Beijing Olympics. The 28 cities are mainly provincial capitals except for 10 cities where the first phase of network building took place, the report said. According to the report, total investment will be CNY30 billion (US$4.4 billion) for these cities, with the operator expected to open equipment bids shortly and complete the network within the year. TD-SCDMA is a homegrown Chinese 3G standard competing with globally deployed commercial standards W-CDMA and CDMA2000 1xEV-DO. TD-SCDMA is believed to be a strong contender for the Chinese government’s technology of choice when it awards commercial 3G licenses after the Olympics. In June it was reported that the country’s MII has urged China Mobile to sign-up more than 100 million subscribers to its TD-SCDMA service in the next three years.