Does China's mobility come at a price?

China Mobile, the world's biggest phone company by users, added a record number of customers in October as fixed-line operator China Telecom lost telephone subscribers for the third straight month. About 6.6 million people signed up for China Mobile's services last month for a total of 356.3 million, according to the Beijing-based carrier's Web site. That is more than the population of the U.S. and Canada combined. China Telecom's total phone subscribers fell by 880,000, it said.

China Telecom and China Netcom Group (Hong Kong) rose in Hong Kong trading for the second day after an official said the fixed-line companies may be granted licenses to provide high-speed wireless services. China Mobile's growth may spur the government to speed up the issuing of third-generation permits to promote competition in the industry.

“Mobile substitution is the trend, and there's not much the fixed-line operators can do,'' Marvin Lo, a Hong Kong-based analyst at Daiwa Institute of Research said. “Getting mobile licenses is the only solution.''

China Mobile shares rose 2 percent to HK$134.40 in Hong Kong, while Unicom gained 3.1 percent at the end of trading in Hong Kong. China Telecom stock surged 8.1 percent to HK$5.89, while Netcom climbed 11 percent, its biggest gain since Dec. 27 last year. Lo rates China Telecom “outperform,'' with a six-month target price of HK$7.30, and has a “hold'' recommendation on Netcom, with a six-month target price of HK$24.72.

China will accelerate the process of granting licenses for providing third-generation mobile-phone services to fixed-line operators to help them compete in the nation's telecommunications market, the official Xinhua News Agency reported Nov. 19, citing Xi Guohua, a vice minister at the Beijing-based Ministry of Information Industry.

Yesterday - Land lines, today - mobile phones. What's for tomorrow?