China's Ministry of Information Industry (MII) has issued the "Interim Provisions on the Administration of the Interconnection of Telecommunications Networks". This is the first formal set of laws and regulations on interconnection to be promulgated since China's telecommunications sector introduced competition.

The Provisions are divided into 10 chapters with 52 clauses, including General Provisions, Obligations of Telecom Enterprises, Interconnection Technical Regulations, Sharing and Settlement of Interconnection Expenses, Interconnection Protocols and Project Construction, Interconnection Time Limit, Network Management Upon Interconnection, Interconnection Coordination and Ruling, Penalties and Supplementary Articles.

The Provisions are applicable to telecom enterprises possessing fixed local telephone networks, domestic long-distance telephone networks, international telephone networks, land cellular mobile telecom networks, satellite mobile telecom networks, data communications networks and other telecom networks specified by the MII and having business licenses for telecom operations.

The Provisions indicate that leading telecom enterprises must configure and transform their networks and expand capacity according to the interconnection demands of other telecom enterprises so as to ensure the realization of various types of interconnection.

The leading telecom enterprises and telecom enterprises requiring interconnection shall ensure that the quality of telecommunications between networks is not lower than that of the services of the same category in their own networks.

The Provisions stipulate in the Interconnection Technical Regulations that users have the right to choose long-distance networks freely, and that telecom enterprises covering a given region shall connect users to the networks they have selected.