BEIJING-China’s two mobile carriers, China Mobile and China Unicom, are resisting competitive pressure from fixed-line operators China Netcom’s and China Telecom’s aggressive promotion of a wireless local loop (WLL) system called Xiaolingtong or Little Smart.
The two mobile carriers recently began to waive fees for incoming calls in selected cities. Users of Xiaolingtong services only pay for outgoing calls, compared with subscribers to regular GSM and CDMA services, who still have to pay for incoming calls.
Beijing-based Norson Telecom Consulting, quoted in the South China Morning Post, estimated the fixed-line operators have invested 22.2 billion yuan (US$2.68 billion) in launching Xiaolingtong networks in hundreds of cities in China during the past two years.
Analysts expect the service to double its subscriber base of 20 million within two years and recoup the fixed-line carriers’ investments before third-generation (3G) services become available in China.
Xiaolingtong is adding precious revenue to the bottom lines of the fixed-line carriers.
In related news, in January, income from mobile services accounted for 52 percent of the total revenue from telecommunications services in China. Mobile carriers added 5.823 million subscribers in January. The total number of cell-phone users was 212 million at the end of the month. Mobile penetration reached 16.2 percent.
In 11 of China’s 31 provinces, centrally administered cities and autonomous regions, not including Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, the number of mobile subscribers has surpassed the number of fixed-line users.
