China proposes two-year MVNO trial
The Chinese government is seeking public input for a draft proposal for mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) trials, allowing new companies to resell wireless services.
In a statement Tuesday, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) issued a draft on MNVO trials as part of the government's plan to encourage private investments into the telecom industry, and open up the sector to more players to increase competition.
The draft defined an MNVO as a party which buys mobile telecommunications services from a telecom provider that has a mobile infrastructure network. The MNVO rebrands the service to resell to end users. While the MNVO does not build its own infrastructure, it must set up a customer support system and other business operations related system.
The draft proposes a two-year trial, where as part of the requirements telecom operators will be required to sign up at least two service resellers.
The quality of connection provided to the MNVO must not be lesser than the ones provided to the licensor's own customers, it said.
The requirements also noted that MNVOs are allowed to provide prepaid services on condition that they are able to provide long-term service and can only accept up to one year's worth of prepaid fees.
The government has set a 30-day deadline, until Feb. 6, for public input.
Currently, China has three mobile operators, China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom.