China Railway Telecom Dabbles in Fixed-phone BusinessAccording to the news from Ministry of Railway, China Railway Telecom has formally been inaugurated with the approval of related departments. This means that the fixed-phone monopoly by China Telecom will come to an end.Following China Unicom, Jitong and China Netcom, China Railway Telecom, another arch-rival in China's Telecom market, is now equipped with advanced technologies and mature management with 650,000 employees and an assets totaling 13.6 billion yuan (about 2.7 billion Singaporean dollar). It is specialized in local call, long-distance call, Internet, data communication, IP phone calls with its telecom network covering 4 municipalities (Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Chongqing) and 25 provincial capitals. However, the company does not have the right to operate mobile phone business, and long-distance call service is limited within inland areas while international phone business is still in the hands of China Telecom. The IP telephone network constructed by China Railway Telecom has been developed to 28 cities and will be extended to 100 cities. Meanwhile, an Internet network connecting 36 cities, a wireless paging network hovering over 700 cities and a state-of-art teleconference network reaching 70 cities will also be under construction. According to experts, the newly established company will pose a great threat to the monopoly of China Telecom's fixed-phone service. By PD Online staff member Li Yan |
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