Liu Xinghuang, a 27-year-old GPRS user, told in a phone call excitedly that he read the first e-mail on his mobile phone.

China Mobile opened its GPRS network on May 16 across the country. Some 240 major cities including the remote Xinjiang and Tibet can enjoy the service.

China ever launched a large-scale mobile phone on-line service three years ago, but finally, it failed because of an exorbitant cost and a snail's speed.

After two years' arduous endeavor, China Mobile stakes itself on the GPRS network and promised to gear up the network speed to 20 K instead of the present 13.4 K on mobile phone.

GPRS network has three characteristics: Users can get on-line round the clock; getting online will not be disturbed by phone call; online fee is collected according to how much you read.

If you do not read anything when log on in a trance, you do not need to pay.

Getting online on mobile phone is going to be a popular spectacle in Beijing soon, experts said.

Four sets of charge collection formulas are available in Beijing now. They are: The free type, each KB (about 512 Chinese words)'s content downloaded from GPRS network needs 0.03 yuan; the economic one, monthly payment is at 20 yuan with content limited within 2000 KB; fashion one, monthly payment is at 100 yuan, within 20,000 KB; commercial one, monthly charge is at 200 yuan, without limitation.

China Mobile's users have exceeded 100 million so far. In order to expand further its business, it opened the GPRS trial network last year.

To date, foreign telecom providers including France Telecom, Britain Telecom and others opened the service. (one US dollar = 8.27 yuan)

(People's Daily May 17, 2002)