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Mobile phone fees could fall even further

By Li Weitao (China Daily)
Updated: 2006-05-31 10:13

Starting from tomorrow, subscribers to China Mobile's cellular service in Beijing will pay much less for making and receiving mobile calls.

Thirty-eight-year-old Ren Xin will be one of the beneficiaries. Choosing a package under a new pricing scheme, the Beijing resident will pay only 20 yuan (US$2.5) for 1,000 minutes of incoming calls.

That is equivalent to 0.02 yuan per minute, compared to 0.40 yuan per minute previously.

But Ren complained: "I should not have to pay for incoming calls at all."
People like Ren have long been looking forward to the caller-pay scheme, a system where users only pay for the calls they make and not for the ones they receive.

Typically, subscribers to China Mobile's "GoTone" service currently pay a monthly subscription fee of 50 yuan (US$12.5) and 0.4 yuan (US$0.05) per minute for both making and receiving calls.

Such a charging scheme has remained unchanged for almost 10 years in Beijing, although de facto one-way charging is practiced in many parts of the country.

A mobile phone fees advertisement in Zhengzhou, Central China's Henan Province. Starting from tomorrow, subscribers to China Mobile's cellular service in Beijing will pay much less for making and receiving mobile calls. [newsphoto]

Major price cuts announced by Beijing Mobile, a subsidiary of China Mobile, early in May have sparked speculation that eventually a caller-pay scheme will be introduced.
Industry executives and analysts expect more promotions and price cuts in the coming months.

But a complete one-way charging system is unlikely to happen, they said.
A senior executive with Beijing Mobile, who asked not be named, said there is still room for further price cuts in mobile fees.

"The price has yet to reach the bottom," he said.

China Unicom has also announced it will cut the fees for local calls by 63 per cent for its pre-paid CDMA subscribers.