In recent years, operators in many regions, especially in small cities, have introduced de facto one-way charging schemes. Many of these moves were opposed by regulators. The Ministry of Information Industry (MII) fined some defiant operators in a bid to block the introduction of one-way charging under a government-set system.

The introduction of one-way charging in Guangdong marks a milestone in deregulation of the industry, as it is the first time regulators have given a formal green light to the caller-pay scheme. At the end of January, Guangdong Mobile publicized the new pricing policy of "free incoming calls," followed by its rival Guangdong Unicom. Days later, Beijing Mobile caught up, followed by Beijing Unicom that offered unconditional free incoming calls to its pay monthly users and packages allowing free incoming calls to other users as of February 14.

"China needs to make a bigger effort to protect consumers' interests, because they have certainly taken a back seat in recent years," said Chen Jinqiao, Director of the Policy Research Department of the MII Telecommunications Research Institute.

"Mobile service providers are showing respect for consumers' feelings," said Li Chunchun, a China Mobile subscriber working in Beijing. "It's unfair to charge me for answering phone calls from anyone anytime."

Regulators are at last beginning to favor the interests of ordinary consumers. Xi Guohua, Vice Minister of Information Industry, said at the end of last year that the government would encourage telecom companies to adopt caller-pay schemes. Moreover, sources with the National Development and Reform Commission, the country's top economic planner, indicated that new charging schemes that fail to incorporate caller-pay services would no longer be approved.

According to Zeng, China must adopt caller-pay mechanisms to be in line with international rules, and traditional two-way charging is no longer suitable to the present situation of economic development in China. Actually, it has become a stumbling block for expansion of the mobile market share and imposed a negative impact on the development of mobile telecommunications. In his opinion, the time is ripe for caller-pay mechanisms.

Early in 2000, the MII considered caller-pay mechanisms of mobile phones and carried out related research, but the plan failed because the share prices of China Mobile and China Unicom, the country's only mobile telecom operators, fell sharply in the Hong Kong stock market after the information was disclosed.

Receiver still pays