China Telecom Corp Ltd, one of the country's three main State-owned carriers, said it plans to climb on the fourth-generation bandwagon after suffering a marked decline in low-end subscribers.

The company lost 5.34 million subscribers, primarily those using second-generation phones, mainly because of intense competition from other carriers.

But within one month of the company being granted a trial permit for TD/FDD, a 4G network, its number of 4G users rose to 600,000 in 16 cities at the end of July, said Wang Xiaochu, China Telecom's chairman and chief executive officer.