China officially entered the next generation of wireless communications when the long-awaited 3G (third generation network) license was issued to three state-owned telecommunication providers on January 7.

China Mobile, the world's largest mobile carrier, was given the license to operate a TD-SCDMA network, one of the country's 3G telecommunications standards.

China Unicom received a license to develop a WCDMA network, and China Telecom was given a license for a CDMA-2000 network.

The new technology will offer Chinese cell phone users faster data access and a wider range of multimedia services, including wireless voice telephony, video calls, and broadband wireless data.

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, in announcing the license issuance, said it expected the move to create a total of 41 billion US dollars spending by the three providers over the next two years on developing the 3G networks.

Meanwhile industry players also projected that the development of 3G facilities would directly and indirectly contribute up to two trillion yuan in investments across the country, which had been eagerly seeking ways to stimulate the slowing economy.

However, the investors appeared skeptical of such a promising outlook, as stock prices of the three mobile providers declined after the announcement.

China mobile stock prices dropped by 5.48%, China Unicom by 1.89% and China Telecom by 5.02% on January 7 alone. The declining trend continued over the following two days.

Below is a chart showing some of plans in the pipeline announced by the three providers over the past days, as well as some insight into their market share.