[May 21, 2013] China Focus: costs of China's telecom, Internet industries likely to drop Tweet BEIJING, May 21, 2013 (Xinhua via COMTEX) -- More private companies are expected to enter China's telecom industry as the country has taken action to encourage and guide private capital to enter the industry, according to a report by Economic Information Daily. Over 60 private companies have applied to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) for business licenses of Internet data center (IDC) and Internet server provider (ISP), and most of them are Internet companies, according to an industry insider. The MIIT is expected to grant the licenses to qualified companies around June and Huawei Technologies and Alibaba Cloud Computing have already passed the examination. Meanwhile, according to the Pilot Plan for the Mobile Telecom Reselling Business recently issued by the MIIT, the authority will grant six Chinese-funded private companies with the licenses to operate the mobile telecom reselling business before the end of October. Both IDC and ISP are value-added telecom services, and value-added telecom services and mobile telecom reselling services are both involved in the eight sectors where the MIIT is encouraging private capital to invest. In view of foreign experiences, after the MIIT issues the three types of licenses, more companies will enter the telecom industry and a market that has been dominated by China's three major telecom operators, China Mobile (CHL.NYSE; 00941.HK), China Unicom (CHU.NYSE; 00762.HK; 600050.SH), and China Telecom (CHA.NYSE; 00728.HK) will be welcoming more participants. On the same day that the MIIT released the pilot plan, the three Chinese telecom giant all adjusted down their charges on telecom services and allowed subscribers to combine certain amounts of call duration, data traffic, and text messages together and make up their own service packages, which is being viewed as preparation for a possible price war triggered by the participation of private capital in the telecom industry. Industry insiders also predict that with the opening up of the telecom industry, besides telecom service charges on individual subscribers, the costs of the whole telecom and Internet industries are likely to drop after the issuance of IDC and ISP licenses. (Edited by Luo Jingjing, [email protected]) [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]