THE government would soon allow the country’s fixed-line telecom operators to venture into the faster-growing mobile market, domestic media reported Sunday, quoting a senior official.

“The rapid development of mobile telecom services had lured away subscribers of fixed-line services,” Xinhua news agency said, quoting Xi Guohua, vice minister of information industry.

The government would grant fixed-line operators licenses for mobile telecom services “at an early date,” Xi was quoted telling a telecom forum in Beijing.

This is likely to be good news for the nation’s two major State-controlled fixed-line operators, China Telecom and China Netcom, who are seeing slow growth in their subscriber base.

Unconfirmed reports have suggested that State-owned mobile carrier China Unicom could be split up between China Telecom and China Netcom.

The number of mobile phone users in China reached 523.3 million at the end of September, up 13.5 percent from late 2006, according to ministry of information industry data.

The number of fixed-line users in China was at 371.7 million, a rise of 1.1 percent from late last year.

(SD-Agencies)