Railway Telecom to Be Another Rival in Domestic Telecom Market

Railway telecom, another rival following China Unicom, China Jitong and China Netcom will join in the competition of domestic telecom market. As learned, the Ministry of Railways, ready to set up a Railway Telecom Company, is now applying for a license of business operation.

As reported, the railway telecom, when licensed, will be permitted to operate all kinds of telecom businesses except the mobile communications, which range from trunk to local calls, and from data transmission to networking operation. As a matter of fact, the railway telecom has already had a huge telecom network, and as an independent transportation sector, the railway has its own telecom system. Usually, the staff members of the Ministry of Railways are provided with two telephone numbers: one being the ordinary one and another the "railway telephone number" of five digits, namely, the "extension number" within the railway system itself. The telephone users are reported to have outnumbered one million. By the end of 1999, the railway has 120,000 km of telecom trunk and extension lines, including 40,000 km of optic-fiber, 4,600 km of digital microwave, and 70 satellite stations, a large communication network covering more than 500 cities throughout the country. In addition, the Ministry has added SDH equipment all along its 11 trunk lines since last November.

Compared with China Telecom, the railway network is really a unified and planned telecom network. According to estimates, its assets amount to around 10 billion-yuan and the figure will increase by folds once licensed. It is not only the second large telecom next only to China Telecom, but also a complete trinity with business, transmission and services. A person in charge of the Ministry of Railways said that it plans to get it listed both in China and America within three years.

Insiders say that the emergence of the railway telecom will lead to an overall change in China's telecom market, in which there might be a tripartition shared by China Telecom, China Unicom, and Railway Telecom. Judging from the international experience, the reforms in the railway telecommunications, featuring the two markets "within" and "without" the railways, have all come to great successes. The Japanese railway telecom, which was set up in 1987, had become one of the large telecom companies in Japan in 1989. So did the German railway telecom. And the British and Canadian railway telecom companies have developed well to be the leading telecom operators in the country once they were out of the ivory tower and into the market. From this we can see that the railway telecom has a bright future ahead.



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