China Unicom

China United Network Communications Group Co., Ltd. (Chinese: 中国联合网络通信集团有限公司) or China Unicom (Chinese: 中国联通), is a Chinese state-owned telecommunications operator in the People's Republic of China. China Unicom is the world's fourth largest mobile service provider by subscriber base. On January 7, 2009, China Unicom was awarded WCDMA license to expand its business to 3G telecommunication.

History

China Unicom was founded as a state-owned corporation on July 19, 1994 by the Ministry of Information Industry and approved by the State Council.

Started as a wireless paging and GSM mobile operator, it currently provides a wide range of services including nationwide GSM mobile network, long-distance, local calling, data communication, Internet services, and IP telephony in mainland China, and has operated a CDMA network in Macau since October 18, 2006. As of the end of April 2008, the company had 125 million GSM subscribers and 43 million CDMA subscribers. As of November 2008 the CDMA operations have been moved to China Telecom and UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System) has just launched in major cities across China on May 17, 2009.