When time comes to July 2003, most Chinese people can feel the obvious changes in the telecom market: more mobile phone users in different places began to enjoy the price reductions brought by "a quasi one-way charge;" the term of service and functions of mobile phones are developing increasingly fast; and the ushering in of Xiaolingtong, or Little Smart, presented a new episode in the price war.

Different from the old monopoly system, the fierce competition has added vigor and prosperity to the world's biggest telecom market.

The past June marked the first anniversary of the reform and re-structure plan of China's telecom sector. If the telecom market of last year was in the situation of cards reshuffling and an early-stage competition, the competition has definitely turned white -hot this year.

In the mobile communication market, the newly emerged operator -- China Unicom, the country's second largest mobile telecom company, has been expanding quickly since the end of last year. China Unicom announced in March that it plans to extend its nationwide CDMA prepaid card service, Ruyi 133, in early August. Soon the company spent huge amount of money to invite famous basketball star Yao Ming as its image front man.

According to China Unicom's estimation, the customers of CDMA will reach 20 million by this year, second only to China Mobile, the largest mobile operator. At the same time, China Mobile presents its new brand of "Mobile Zone" with the rising pop star Zhou Jielun from Taiwan as its image front man in an effort to attract young customers. A new round of competition between the two mobile communication operators has begun.

Statistics show that China Mobile keeps an amazing expanding speed of 4 million new customers per month this year, though somewhat slower than last year. By this May, the total customers of China Mobile had reached 235 million. The company has created a network in the mobile communication industry which consists of manufacture, operation, contents providing and sales.

As for the fixed-line operator sector, things changed dramatically late this June when the two largest fixed-line telecom companies, China Telecom and China Netcom, declared to join hands. This signaled the two giants who used to divide the China market into the north and south, are now willing to have a fair play.

Hopefully, before long, customers nationwide will be able to make free choices in communication service such as long-distance call and Internet access via dial telephones. With the coming into shape of the competition between the two national fixed-line operators, there will be more and more fierce competitions in the future.

Another hotspot in the communication market is the rapid expansion of Xiaolington, or Little Smart. Like a troublemaker, Xiaolington extended its business of fixed-line telecom operators to the mobile communication market. By June this year, Xiaolington had broken through the final frontline and began to operate in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, which brought big impact to the traditional local mobile telecom charge system. Experts believe the emerging of Xiaolington might fasten the decline of current mobile communication charge.

In addition, it is worth notice that foreign capital has quickened its steps in entering into China's telecom market. This March, the Ministry of Information Industry permitted a joint venture company named "Beijing Wuzhou Zhongheng" to engage in the Internet information service, the first of this sort since China's entry to the WTO. According to officials with the ministry, more than 10 applications are on the waiting list for establishing a telecom business in China with foreign investment.

All these changes have proved, to a certain extent, that the reforms carried out in the telecom industry aimed at "breaking the monopoly and inviting in competition" begin to show the effects. According to statistics from the Ministry of Information Industry, with an increase of 8.18 million, the total number of China's telecom customers had reached 460 million by May this year.

Wang Xudong, the new minister who took office this year, said that the Ministry of Information Industry, as the watchdog of this giant market, is making a new settlement plan for telecom operators. This so-called "hard measure" plan will regulate the price war and remove man-made obstacles by means of economics, law and administration, which will be fulfilled by the end of this year. By that time, a more standard and healthy telecom market will appear on the horizon.

(China.org.cn by Zheng Guihong, July 29, 2003)