During 2002, China has become the single largest telecom market in the world. Between 1997 and 2002 the Chinese telecommunication sector’s growth rate was around 20%. It doubles the GDP or Gross Domestic Product rate of the country and considered as the strongest and fastest growth in line of industry across the globe. Five years ago, only one out of ten Chinese citizens own a phone but now more than one out of three are telephone subscribers and over 1.25 million people sign up to be a cellular subscriber every week.
The country is comprised of numerous telecom operators in which the state has control and owns majority of all of them. The following are the telecommunication operators in the country.
- is the largest fixed service telecommunication provider in the country operating mainly in different provinces of the South and West. It provides fixed-line, Xiaolingtong or the Personal Handy-phone system, fixed-line voice, data, video, multimedia and information services both domestically and internationally. The company also offers broadband internet access to more than 38 million subscribers.
- also known as China Netcom Group Corporation (Hong Kong) Limited that was originally formed in August 1999 by the government. CNC is a provider of wire-line telecommunication services in the areas of north and mainland of the country. It is also a subsidiary of China Network Communications Group Corporation. This widely-known two-fixed line operator after China Telecom operates a PAS or Xiaolingtong system.
- founded in 1997, China Mobile or simply known as CMCC is the largest mobile phone operator in the country and worldwide. It has 415 million subscribers as of June 30, 2008 estimates. China Mobile does not only operate basic GSM services but also General Packet Radio Service of GPRS data transfer, IP telephony and multimedia.
- on July 19, 1994 China Unicom was established by the Ministry of Information Industry formerly known as the Ministry of Electronic Industry as a state-owned corporation. It started as a wireless paging and GSM mobile operator but now it currently provides a wide range of services such as nationwide GSM, long distance, local calling, data communication, internet services and IP telephony. The firm has reached 125 million GSM and 43 million CDMA subscribers as of April 2008. In addition, this third largest mobile operator throughout the world is the only one in the country operating a CDMA network.