China's three state-owned telecommunications companies intend to remove domestic roaming fees and offer a series of pricing incentives to SMEs in an attempt to boost business take-up of network technology, reports Reuters. The chairmen of China Telecom, China Mobile and China Unicom told reporters that they will end inter-province roaming fees by October. They will also apply a series of discount pricing schemes for businesses, the details of which weren’t disclosed.
The government is looking to lower telecom fees to cut corporate operating expenses and encourage enterprises to adopt network technology, said the report, adding that it also wanted to incentivise price competition in the sector by approving applications from private companies seeking to market and sell telecom services. In that regard, the Ministry of Information Industry and Technology said it has approved applications to provide broadband services from 198 private enterprises under a pilot project.
