China will continue testing and expand the trial run of the new 4G network technology that allows 10 to 20 times faster Internet access, the industry's top regulator said yesterday.

It also has a huge market potential that will open business opportunities to domestic firms like China Mobile, ZTE Corp and Huawei Technologies, industry insiders said.

"China is actively promoting the 4G network trial after making very good progress in 2012," Zhang Feng, director of the telecommunications development department of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said.

Zhang did not give any other details, like the time frame to issue 4G licenses, but specified that the ongoing trials in Shanghai, Xiamen, Nanjing, Guangzhou and Shenzhen will continue. The next step in 4G development will be determined from the results of this test run, Zhang said.

The fourth-generation network, or 4G, has been adopted in many markets, including Hong Kong, the United States, Japan and South Korea.

In theory, all 3G users are potential 4G users.

As of the end of 2012, China had 230 million 3G users.

China Mobile, the world's biggest mobile carrier, is actively testing 4G technologies. It finished the first-phase trials in six cities with 850 base stations in September 2011. The company built 20,000 base stations in 13 cities last year and planed to raise that number to 200,000 by 2013.

China Mobile does not support iPhone and is losing its market share to rivals China Unicom and China Telecom.

The new 4G networks are based on TD-LTE (time division-long term evolution) technology, which is expected to be supported by mainstream firms including Qualcomm and even Apple. Chinese telecommunications equipment makers are also waiting for the 4G networks, investing heavily in equipment.

Shenzhen-based ZTE and Huawei, the country's top two equipment maker, may better their results because of domestic 4G orders. ZTE, which is expected to report a loss of up to 2.9 billion yuan in 2012, may turn the slide in the first quarter largely due to the 4G market, the Shenzhen-listed firm said on Sunday.

Huawei, China's biggest private telecom firm, now owns 9 percent of the patents on LTE technologies, making it No. 1 among domestic telecommunication companies.