China Telecom has announced the beginning of the trial operation of its 3G services in Jiangsu and Shanghai, but the services are currently only available to users of the My eHome service.

According to the policy of China Telecom Jiangsu and Shanghai, users of My eHome can apply for a free CDMA EVDO card and 100 hours of monthly surfing time. China Telecom Jiangsu will select 3,000 lucky users of My eHome and then will give them 100 hours monthly surfing time for free in March and April 2009. If the users finish the 100 hours, the excess part will be charged at CNY0.05 per minute. China Telecom Shanghai says from March 16 until the end of this month, if the users of My eHome e8 package successfully apply for the e9 package and promise a monthly consumption of CNY250, they will have the opportunity to gain a free 3G network interface card and 100 hours of monthly surfing time.

A representative from China Telecom said that because the preparation progress is different in various areas, the company will not decide a unified time for the launch of the trial operation. Provinces that have already finished the preparation can start the trial operation first and those are not fully prepared can launch the services later. But the trial operation is expected to be started in all provinces by May 2009.

After the trial operation, China Telecom will formally start the 3G commercial service and will launch several packages at different prices in China.