China Telecom intends to cover all cities with 4G services in 2015, representing92% by population and 80% by geographical span. CT plans to expand its network to over 320k macro 4G base stations (+200k YoY)and over 140k indoor distribution systems(+80k YoY) by 2015-end,making its claimed 4G network quality comparable with that of China Mobile in urban areas. 4G users ramped to 7m at 2014-end.
The co delivered Feb-2015 mobile net adds of 0.9m, including a0.9m 2G user loss and 1.8m 3G+4G user adds. We believe the extensive deployment of base stations will trigger a clea ruser recovery in 2015. Nearly all subscribers should be 4G by 2016-end.