An insider who has close connections with China Mobile (CHL) has disclosed to local media that China Mobile's GSM network expansion, which has cost the company CNY35 billion, has almost been completed and the expanded network has met the requirement of EGPRS, an equivalent to EDGE.

China Mobile has already launched EGPRS network in all major Chinese cities. As shown by an advertisement board at Hangzhou Airport, China Mobile's EGPRS network can reach a speed of 60-120 kilobytes per second, which is three times that of the original network. However, the service is now only available to China Mobile's data card clients.

EDGE, which China Mobile prefers to call "EGPRS", involves only about 20% of the cost of WCDMA, therefore, China Mobile may choose not to work on WCDMA, and instead it may come to face the upcoming 3G market competition by combining EDGE and TD.