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China Telecom Vows to Improve Services
China Telecom, which boasts 68.1 per cent of the country's telephone subscribers, claims that it will improve its overall services so as to survive the breakneck market competition.
Zhang Jiping, vice-president of China Telecom, made this promise at a press conference in Beijing on Wednesday (November 22) held to explain the disputed advertising fees collected by Chengdu Yellow Page by keeping its customers in the dark. The yellow page company is a subsidiary of China Telecom Sichuan Branch.
In August, a Chengdu resident found that an extra 50 yuan (US$6) was billed when he paid his telephone bills. He made several inquiries and found the extra charge of an advertising fee for his information published in the Chengdu Yellow Page. Moreover, he said the employees of China Telecom was impatient and rude when he asked them about the doubtful payment.
So he brought the giant China Telecom to a Chengdu court and the case is not heard yet.
China's telecommunications sector was monopolized by the state-owned China Telecom for quite a long time until the establishment of China Unicom in 1994. And last year, the telecom giant split into four companies. These moves demonstrate the country's determination to break the long-term monopoly.
It is safe to say that the telecom giant, a flagship telecom service provider in China, is facing a tough future after China's accession into the World Trade Organization expected at the beginning of next year.
Zhang said China Telecom has already taken some measures to restructure the company and will solve its chronic problems and improve its services.
However, China Telecom still bears the marks of years of monopoly and it takes time to overcome these problems and to shape it according to the market standards, said Zhang.
Zhang also said whatever the court decision is, China Telecom Chengdu Branch will surely draw a lesson from the case and will learn to play by the market rules.
MII: China to Launch 5 Rules on Telecom Services
China is to put into operation five laws on telecommunications services to better regulate the telecom industry, officials from the Ministry of Information Industry (MII) announced September 30.
Among them, regulations on regular report on service quality, and public announcement on service quality, are to be released soon, which are aimed to put the telecom industry under the surveillance of the society to upgrade the service level of the telecom market, MII said.
Companies Promise Better Service
We've seen complaints about telecom services on the rise during recent years and poor services are often the targets of criticism by consumers. Therefore, in an interview with reporters general managers from China Telecom, China Unicom, and China Mobile jointly promised that they are sure to offer better telecom services in the near future.
At a press conference held by the Information Office of the State Council on September 25, telecom services came to head a hot issue, Wu Jichuan, minister of Information Industry, said that the information industry will earnestly solve the service problems by attaching great importance to them.
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