China Mobile has invited telecom equipment makers to submit bids to build its high speed phone network, a deal worth about $3.1 billion. The network will be based on China's homegrown TD-SCDMA standard. The carrier plans to spend a little more than $500 million on subsidies for 3G handsets. The planned network will cover eight cities, including Beijing and Shanghai.

For more on China's planned TD-SCDMA network:
- read this brief from the New York Times