Limited Mobility Debate--Chinese Version

If you thought that with the CDMA versus GSM debate dominating the telecom scene in India of late, we were ahead of our big neighbors in debating issues, you are mistaken. China now has its own version of the debate.

As in India, fixed lines operators in China--China Telecom and China Netcom--have launched a kind of "limited mobility" service, called Xiaolingtong or Little Smart. This, exactly like Reliance and others in India, offers low airtime rates, incoming free and no roaming. However, the ministry of information has allowed Little Smart only in small and medium sized cities so far, though the minister for information industry, Wu Jichuan, has of late siad that the government would not oppose its march onto the cities, according to a report in China Daily. Beijing Communications Corporation, a subsidiary of China Netcom, that is offering the services has pland to launch it in more Beijing suburbs, though not in the main city so far. Last year saw 10 million users signing up for the service, almost equal to India's total cellular users. 

The service is significantly cheaper with voice minute costing just 0.11 yuan (about 65 paise) to GSM rates of 0.40 yuan (about Rs 2.40). SMS is also slightly cheaper with tariff of 0.08 yuan (48 paise) to GSM's 0.1 yuan (about 60 paise). Even monthly rental is almost half with Little Smart rates at 20 youan compared to GSM's 40 yuan. However, unlike India, where a CDMA handset costs more than or equal toa GSM handset making it difficult for low-end users to invest, Little Smart offers even cheaper handsets at about 750 yuan (Rs 4500) compared to comparable GSM handsets that cost almost the double.

Shyamanuja Das in China