The Chinese mobile operators have been asked to discontinue charging extra fees for SMS sent by users in order to compete in the market and to check the loss of subscriber base by smaller operators. According to a statement by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) and the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the mobile operators in China are asked to do away with the extra fees they charge for an user to send SMS or MMS. The regulation, MIIT and NDRC say, are designed to protect consumers’ rights and create healthy competition in the market which will also be worthy for smaller operators like China Unicom.
The Chinese telco, in order to lure subscribers and set up barriers for competitors, charged subscribers extra fees to for send SMS to subscribers on the other network. For instance, China Mobile, charges its GoTone users in Beijing $0.021 for sending a short message to China Unicom’s or China Telecom’s subscribers, compared with the $0.014 it charges for sending a message to other China Mobile subscribers. Even though, China Unicom and China Telecom have a similar charging scheme, their subscribers end up paying more as majority subscribers are that of China Mobile’s.
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