CHINA Mobile will transform its business and boost revenue in 2017 by tying up with partners to tap the 5G network, Internet of Things and smart home development, the telco said yesterday.

The country's No. 1 telecommunications carrier also seeks to boost cooperation with top Chinese dot-com firms including Alibaba and Baidu in these areas.

China had over 1 billion mobile broadband users at the end of November, opening up opportunities in e-commerce, social networking and mobile games, industry insiders said.

China Mobile and partners like Huawei Technologies and ZTE Corp are testing 5G base stations and various devices nationwide. The new 5G technology, which will debut between 2018 and 2020, offers consumers a bandwidth of above 1 gigabytes per second, 20-50 times faster than current 4G networks, said Huang Yuhong, vice director of the China Mobile Lab.

Editor: Lan Suying