"Both from absolute numbers and the growth rate, China is the biggest telecom market in the world now," says Jonathan Dharmapalan, partner at Ernst & Young and head of the firm's telecoms practice in Beijing. "So most future innovations in the industry are going to be played out here, and most of the groundbreaking thinking is going to happen here." Six months on, the industry has indeed seen big changes. China Mobile, the market leader, has absorbed the small player China Tietong.

China Unicom, China Mobile's weaker rival, has started a merger with China Netcom, one of two fixed-line operators. China Telecom, the other big fixed-line company, plans to absorb Unicom's CDMA business.

But despite these moves, resolution of the key issues is at least one, if not two or more years off, say analysts.