China Mobile has become the world’s first mobile operator to pass the half a billion subscriber milestone. In a brief customer data update on its website this morning, the Chinese market-leader said it had reached 503 million customers by the end of August. It said it added 5.3 million customers (net additions) in August to reach the half a billion milestone, which means that the operator has added 45.7 million customers (cumulative net additions) in the year to date. The operator – the world’s largest by subscribers – also said that it had signed up 1.3 million subscribers to its new 3G network by end-August. The TD-SCDMA-based network – branded as ‘G3’ – is being rolled-out countrywide this year. According to Wireless Intelligence forecasts, China Mobile is on track to achieve 512 million connections by the end of the current quarter (Q309) with TD-SCDMA connections accounting for 1.5 million.

In other news, China Mobile and Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) announced today that they have conducted what they claim is the world’s first TD-LTE femtocell demonstration. NSN’s Beijing research team demonstrated a live streaming video downlink application using a compact experimental Femtocell prototype in China Mobile’s Research Institute laboratory. The demonstration achieved throughputs which exceed the typical xDSL speed currently possible via residential broadband connections, NSN said in a statement. The vendor added that it has further expanded its R&D team in Hangzhou and Beijing, China, to support the commercial rollout of TD-LTE, which is considered the next-generation technology path for TD-SCDMA.