China's government may issue its first high-speed wireless license within six months, an executive said, opening up a market with more subscribers than the combined populations of the U.S. and Japan.

"We can't drag on any longer if China expects to provide 3G services by the 2008 Olympics'' in Beijing, Zuo Xunsheng, chief executive officer of China Netcom Group Corp. (Hong Kong) Ltd., the nation's second-largest phone company, said in an interview yesterday at his Hong Kong office. The government hasn't given a timeframe for issuing the licenses.

Companies may initially spend around US$7 billion in China on equipment for third-generation networks that allow faster downloads of music and movies, according to Beijing-based Norson Telecom Consulting. China is the world's largest mobile market by users, with 431.8 million subscribers at the end of July, government figures showed.

The Chinese regulator in February asked the parent companies of Beijing-based China Netcom and China Telecom Corp., the nation's biggest fixed-line operator, and China Mobile Ltd., the world's largest cellular operator by users, to conduct trials of the locally developed time division synchronous code division multiple access, or TD-SCDMA, standard.

The trials, which were targeted to be completed by July, have been extended to October to test usage of the service among the three operators, Zuo said in his first media interview since replacing Edward Tian as CEO in May.

Zuo, 55, joined China Netcom in July 2004 as senior vice president and was promoted to chief operating officer in December 2005. He is also a vice president of parent China Network Communications Group Corp. in Beijing.

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