Telecom operators

As of 2004, the telecom operators in China are exclusively Chinese: two fixed-line operators with nation-wide licenses - China Telecom and China Netcom - two mobile carriers - China Mobile (GSM) and China Unicom (GSM and CDMA)- as well as two minor players - China Satcom and China Tietong. The State has control and majority ownership of all of them. Most of them are financed in Hong Kong.

• China Telecom operates mainly in the wealthy Southern provinces (including Shanghai and Canton) in addition to the less prosperous West. It runs domestic and international fixed-line networks and provides fixed-line voice, data, video, multimedia and information services. It compensates the lack of a mobile license by deploying PAS/PHS very successfully. A second focus point is broadband based on Ethernet and ADSL.^[15]

• China Netcom operates in the Northern provinces (including Beijing) and provides broadband, WLAN, IP telephony^[16] and PAS/PHS services.

• China Mobile not only operates basic GSM services but also value-added services such as General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) data transfer, IP telephony and multimedia. It ranks the first in the world in terms of network scale and customer base.^[17]

• China Unicom is to date the only licensed full telecom service provider in China.^[18] Its services include fixed-line, mobile, IP telephony, data and internet. Furthermore, China Unicom is the third largest mobile operator in the world and the only one in China operating a CDMA network.^[19] It is concentrating its efforts on CDMA and little investment is expected in GSM.

• China Satcom is licensed to engage in all kind of satellite related services such as transponder lease, domestic television broadcasting, public Very Small Antenna Aperture (VSAT) communications, video conferencing, data broadcasting, IP telephony and satellite based high-speed Internet access.^[20]

• China TieTong is a smaller company.

• China Voice Holdings Corp is also licensed to engage in all kind of video conferencing, data broadcasting, IP telephony and satellite based high-speed Internet access and is the largest corporation in conjunction with the America's free enterprise system which holds many of the state run contracts for the Chinese government.Telecommunications Equipment Market in China Stat-USA Market Research Reports. 2004

Foreign participation

Prior to its WTO accession, China’s policy protected the national emerging telecom industry^[5] since it was and is a national priority sector. Only foreign equipment vendors were allowed to invest in China.^[6] Authorization for the investments was conditioned on technology transfer.^[7] International telecom carriers were banned from accessing the market.^[8]

As part of the WTO commitments, the Chinese government is opening gradually the carriers market to foreign investors. There are some geographical limits to this opening but they will be progressively relaxed. In 2005 foreign investors will be allowed for form joint ventures, investing up to 50% in Internet services in the whole country, up to 49% in the mobile sector in 17 major Chinese cities and up to 25% in fixed-line basic services in Beijing, Shanghai and Canton (Guangzhou).^[9] Finding a Chinese partner to form a joint venture with, preferably a major carrier is mandatory for a foreign company wishing to access the Chinese market.

Foreign investments come, in order of importance, from the United States, Canada, Sweden, Finland, Germany, France, Japan and South Korea.^[10] Main companies from these countries already have one or more Joint Ventures. Notice that many of them result in divorce.

Historical overview

Before 1994, the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications (MTP) provided telecom services through its operational arm, China Telecom. Pressured by other ministries and dissenting customers, the Chinese government officially started the telecom industry reforms in 1994 by introducing a new competitor: China Unicom. China Unicom could hardly compete with the giant China Telecom.

In 1998, due to a ministerial reorganization, the MTP was replaced by the new Ministry of Information Industry (MII). The MII took two large scale reshuffling actions targeting the inefficient state-monopoly. In 1999 the first restructuring split China Telecom’s business into thee parts (fixed-line, mobile and satellite). China Mobile and China Satcom were created to run, respectively, the mobile and satellite sectors but China Telecom continued to be a monopoly of fixed-line services. The second restructuring in 2002 split China Telecom geographically into North and South: China Telecom - North kept 30% of the network resources and formed China Netcom (CNC) and 70% of the resources were retained by China Telecom - South or simply the new China Telecom.

These resources consisted of a 2,200,000 km long nation-wide optical network, based on Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM), Synchronous Digital Hierarchy (SDH) and Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) technologies and several submarine cables, in particular with the USA, Japan, Germany and Russia.

Parallel to this double fission, the telecommunications division of the Ministry of Railways (MOR) established a new actor in 2000: China TieTong.^[1]

To sum up, in the last decade the Chinese telecom industry has changed from a state-run monopolistic structure to state-run oligopolistic structure.

Regulatory environment

The MII is responsible, among other duties, for elaborating regulations, allocating resources, granting licenses, supervising the competition, promoting research and development and service quality as well as as for developing tariff rates.^[2][3] The MII has built up a nation-wide regulatory system composed of Provincial Telecommunications Administrations (PTA) with regulatory functions within their respective provinces. A number of other significant institutions also influence the industry, such as the State Development and Reform Commission (SDRC).^[4]

Following its WTO accession, China is starting to make plans, including adopting western-style telecommunications law and setting up an independent regulatory and arbitration body to deal with the telecom operators.

Telecommunications industry

The telecommunications industry in China is monopolized by various state-run businesses: China Telecom and China Netcom in the fixed-line business, China Mobile and China Unicom in the mobile sector, as well as two much smaller companies: China Satcom and China TieTong. As a result of China’s entry to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, a new regulatory regime is now being established and foreign operators are gradually being allowed to access the market. Although Chinese customers keep complaining that they need to pay higher prices for products and services and receive lower-quality services than customers in America or Europe, foreign travellers often feel that the telcommunication services in China is cheap and convenient.

As China’s 2nd generation of mobile communications equipment market is dominated by European and North American companies and because of the unique characteristics of mobile communications, most of China’s mobile communications equipment demands are filled by imports. The quickly rising Chinese manufacturers, however, led by Huawei Technologies and ZTE are turning to South American, Southeast Asian and African countries for business opportunities and are increasingly raising their market share in China.

In 2005, China’s Ministry of Information Industry (MII), the most important government regulator in the telecommunications industry, projects that Chinese telecom carriers will invest $25 billion to recruit 45 million fixed line telephone subscribers and 58 million cellular phone users. MII expects the number of fixed line telephone users to reach 361 million and the penetration rate to reach 27.6% by the end of 2005 and the number of cellular users to reach 392 million and a penetration rate of 30%. With such an investment, Chinese telecom carriers expect to generate revenues of USD 76.5 billion, 10.4% more than that in 2004.