Sunil Mittal, chairman of GSMA, today welcomed the decision of China Telecom, China Mobile and China Unicom to end their inter-province roaming fees by October.
Sunil Mittal, speaking at Mobile the Mobile Congress (MWC 2017) in Barcelona last week, called for the end of domestic and international roaming fees.
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“We are extremely delighted that GSMA’s call to bring an end to domestic roaming fees has received resounding support from the leading operators in China, the largest telecoms market in the world,” Sunil Mittal said.
Sunil Mittal said that the plan to eliminate domestic roaming fees will not just promote customer convenience by ending bill shocks but help boost usage by customers through adoption of network technologies to augment productivity, innovation and economic growth.
“We are sure operators in other countries will take the cue from China’s example to usher in similar initiatives, in the interest of the customers,” Sunil Mittal said.
Reuters report that China’s telecom firms will eliminate domestic roaming fees and offer pricing incentives to small and mid-sized enterprises, to encourage corporate customers to adopt network technology such as cloud computing.
The comments from as the government works to lower telecom fees to spur consumer spending, cut corporate operating expenses, and encourage enterprises to adopt network technology – all under a broader policy of increasing efficiency and capacity in traditional industries.
The government has encouraged price competition in the telecom sector by approving applications from private enterprises seeking to market and sell telecom services.
The Ministry of Information Industry and Technology on Monday said it has approved applications to provide broadband internet services from 198 private enterprises under a pilot project. The number adds to approvals for 42 enterprises to resell mobile network services starting from 2013.
