MACAO: China took another step toward its long-cherished goal of operating high-speed telecom services, with China Mobile dishing out over $4 billion of deals and smaller rival Unicom hoping to win a 3G license soon.

But analysts continued to warn that while the billions of dollars need to be invested under an ambitious government-orchestrated plan, carriers and investors should not expect quick returns with consumers likely to tighten spending in a worsening economy.

China Mobile, the world's largest mobile provider, is now in talks with Motorola and Sony-Ericsson on acquiring dual-band cellphones that can used on China's homegrown third-generation wireless standard, known as TD-SCDMA.