China’s leading mobile company is preparing to spend around $3bn (£1.53bn) on building the country’s first 3G network before Beijing has issued licences for the technology.

China Mobile Communications on Monday invited bids for contracts to build the TD-SCDMA network from equipment manufacturers. The network will span eight major cities and commercial trials of the 3G service will begin in October. Cities covered by the network will include Beijing and Shanghai.

According to the newspaper, the South China Morning Post on Tuesday, the timetable for issuing 3G licences in mainland China will depend on the outcome of the trials.

According to the newspaper, which cited ‘industry sources’, Beijing will issue licences for 3G – including CDMA and WCDMA – once its own home-grown TD-SCDMA has passed the trials.

ZTE, Datang Telecom, Huawei, Alcatel Shanghai, China Putian, Fiberhome Telecommunication Technologies and TD Tech were all invited to bid for the contract, as well as Nokia and Ericsson.