Beijing – China Unicom, one of the nation’s three leading mobile operators, has started trials of its high-speed 3G network, reports Xinhua News. China Unicom was licensed by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) on January 7 to operate Europe’s WCDMA standard. It was the last operator after China Mobile and China Telecom to start trial operation for a 3G service. The trial network covers 55 cities, and would expand to 284 cities by the end of September, according to Chang Xiaobing, the company’s president. He said the regular service would start at the year-end, but did not give a specific date. MIIT issued three long-awaited 3G licenses on January 7. The other two were to China Mobile, for TD-SCDMA the domestically-developed 3G standard, and to China Telecom for the US-developed CDMA2000. The ministry expected the three operators would invest 170 billion yuan (US$25 billion) in 3G network construction this year. Despite the fanfare of 3G entering the market, analysts said it would not give much boost to China’s telecom carriers, adding that the country’s telecom industry is now entering a downward spiral, a trend that is likely to last at least one or two years.