Steve Jobs is rumored to be meeting with China Mobile Ltd representatives to officially bring the iPhone to the network. TechCrunch reports that China Mobile is the world’s largest mobile operator and already has more than 7 million iPhone users on its network. If the talks are real and successful, China Mobile may soon sell and officially support iPhones.

According to Jefferies & Co. analyst Peter Misek, the Apple iPhone 5 is unlikely to have LTE functionality. Misek also said that the iPhone device that is expected to launch in September should be called the iPhone 4S. And if his sources are correct, Apple will announced that the iPhone 4S will be available on Sprint, T-Mobile, and China Mobile.

Ericsson has announced a deal with China Mobile and China Unicom that is worth $1.8 billion. Ericsson will provide China Unicom with a faster 3G network. Ericsson will also provide China Mobile equipment to boost their capacity for mobile networks. “The signing of the significant frame agreements is a manifestation of our continued strong co-operation with our Chinese customers,” stated Ericsson head of China Mats Olsson. [BBC]

China Mobile will be paying $5.8 billion for 20% of Shanghai Pudong Development Bank.  China Mobile will develop mobile e-commerce and finance businesses with Pudong as a result of the deal.  China Mobile will buy about 2.2 billion Pudong bank shares at about 18.03 yuan.  This is a discount of 13% to Pudong bank’s shares from Feb. 25. [NYT]

Motorola, Inc. (NYSE:MOT) will soon start selling a phone that is similar to the Droid in China. However the phone will be using China’s 3G standard and the China Mobile operating system. This means it will be based on the Android operating system, modified by China Mobile. The Droid uses the newest Google mobile operating system without much modification.

The 3G mobile standard used in China is called TD-SCDMA (Time Division Synchronous Code Division Multiple Access). It will also have support for wireless LANs (not specifically WiFi). The MT710 will not have a slide out keyboard, it is purely touchscreen. The built in camera is 5 megapixels. The actual name that will be used for the device in China is the Motorola MT710 Zhiling. Zhiling means “intelligent” and “leader.” China Mobile currently has about 510 million subscribers.

Dell Inc. (NASDAQ:DELL) has implemented the Google Android operating system in a new mobile phone that they are launching in China and Brazil. China Mobile and Claro will be selling the Dell Mini 3 very soon. The Dell Mini 3 is the company’s first smartphone and the specs are mum for now.

LG Electronics will soon be releasing the LG GW880 on China Mobile.  The phone will be powered by the OPhone OS.  OPhone OS is based on the Google Android operating system.

The OPhone has an interface like the iPhone and there is an application store called the Mobile Market for the phone. The OPhone SDK is compatible with the Android SDK.

The LG GW880 works with a 3G connection and TD-SCDMA/EDGE.  The LG GW880 also has a 3.5″ touch screen, WVGA resolution, GPS, Bluetooth, 5 megapixel camera, 512 MB ROM/256MB RAM.

Within the next couple of days, Dell will be launching a mobile phone.  The phone will be powered by the Google Android operating system.  Since the operating system is open source, this will save the Chinese customers some money.  The news about an Android-powered Dell phone has been rumored since April.

The provider of the phone service will be China Mobile.  And the phone is expected to be called the Ophone mini3i.  Given the word mini is in the name, I have a strong belief that the phone will be miniature.

Rumor has it that Dell is also working with Google Android on a tablet PC.  But there is another rumor that Dell is working on their own proprietary operating system while partnering with software company Red Office.

The Dell Ophone mini3i phone is expected to operate similarly to the iPhone.  The phone will have a touchscreen and will not have a physical keyboard.  Lenovo and Dopod are also expected to launch Ophones of their own in the next several days.  All Ophones will have TD-SCDMA (Time Division Synchronous Code Division Multiple Access).  This means the phone will not work outside of China, unless hacked of course.

[via MobileCrunch]