China Mobile Launches 3G Trial, Lowest Call Rate 0.11 Yuan/Minute

Yesterday (September 9), a relevant report from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology showed that starting from September, China Mobile will first carry out a pilot project for TD fee schemes in three cities: Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Tianjin. During the trial period, the four types of packages offered will have free local incoming calls, and local outgoing calls will be charged at 0.22 yuan for the first three minutes and then 0.11 yuan per minute thereafter. This fee standard is almost on par with the current fixed-line telephone fees. It was introduced that this price scheme will later be promoted in ten cities across the country, including Beijing. However, the customer service of China Mobile's 10086 hotline stated that they have not yet received any notice regarding the reduction in video call fees.

This price will be piloted in ten domestic cities for one year.

According to the "Report" submitted by China Mobile to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the newly launched TD fee packages include four categories: corporate package, family package, SME office mainframe package, and campus card package. The monthly subscription prices for these four categories range from 10 yuan to 100 yuan, mainly covering voice services without including data traffic. This is also the first time that mobile phone fees have been reduced to a level comparable to fixed-line telephone fees since the implementation of one-way mobile phone charges.

As of August 24, the total number of TD-SCDMA network users in the country reached 175,000 households, including 104,000 socialized test users, 11,000 trial users, and 60,000 Olympic dedicated users.

According to the plan, this fee scheme will be piloted in ten cities where the TD-SCDMA network has been constructed: Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Shenyang, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Xiamen, Qinhuangdao, Qingdao, and Baoding, with a trial period of one year. China Mobile will start the pilot work for the fee scheme in three cities—Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Tianjin—from September 2008, and will appropriately initiate pilot projects in other cities based on the pilot situation in Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Tianjin as well as market development status.