As announced last month, China Telecom launched the iPhone 4S on its network in mainland China today. According to an M.I.C. Gadget report, the carrier has taken over 200,000 pre-orders for the device, with orders in Beijing and Shanghai topping 10,000 and 20,000 units, respectively. While China Telecom operates a CDMA network similar to the ones operated by Verizon and Sprint in the U.S., it is passing out micro UIM cards—similar to GSM SIM cards, but developed for CDMA handsets—that are required to activate the phone. China Telecom is the third-largest mobile carrier in China with a reported subscriber base of roughly 130 million subscribers.
