The announcement confirmed a long-expected industry reshuffle involving another two smaller telecom service providers namely China Unicom and China Netcom.

Pan Guangliang, Asia-Pacific Network Information Center, said, "for the major three telecom operators, China telecom, China Unicom and China Mobile, currently, they have some IPs, but very limited."

Four undersea cables will have made landfall in east Africa by the end of the year, enormously increasing the availability and reducing the cost of telecoms links with the rest of the world.