Chinese telecom operators scrap domestic roaming fee

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China's major telecom operators today announced to end domestic roaming charge.

China Mobile, China Telecommunications and China Unicom will not charge any roaming fee effective from September 1.

Customers are taking the decision to end roaming charges as a milestone in the telecommunication industry.

Historic problem

Historically, connecting long-distance calls requires providers to do more work. That's why they charge more on these calls.

A mobile phone in Beijing calling China Telecom's service number in Shanghai /CGTN Photo

But for modern mobile networks, the cost difference is no longer significant enough for the providers to ask extra money, as everything are now based on IP like the Internet.

You never get charged for connecting to a distance server on the Internet, right?

Domestic 'roaming'

It's a similar story for roaming fees. But the word "roaming" may need more explanation since it can be different to what you know.

The word "roaming" in China usually means the scenario that a Chinese phone user travels from one province to another. So it's "domestic roaming" within the same country.

The roaming option on a CDMA smartphone in China‍ /CGTN Photo

China is large in land space. Technically, inter-provincial calls functioned like international ones in Europe.

By the time 3G was introduced, many people in China doubted if it's still an viable excuse for the providers to charge roaming fees.

After years of negotiations, representatives at the National People's Congress, and the officials in the government successfully persuaded the providers to give up part of their revenue and benefit the people.

Already there

The extra charges have already been exempted for a large portion of mobile phone users in China.

Since the introduction of 3G to China in 2009, the providers have been unifying local, long-distance and roaming calls.

According to internal data from China Mobile revealed by Yangcheng Evening News (a news paper in Guangzhou that's been running for decades), more than 550 million users are already enjoying the unified service.

That's almost 40 percent of the whole population in China.

Basically, the new rule only effect people who use an old service bundle, and never tried to upgrade.

If you buy a new phone number from the three providers this year, the paid-receiving is not even an option.

After the new rule, the era of paying to receive calls has officially ended in the country.