The debate over lowering roaming fees for mobile phones ended without a decision yesterday.

After a public hearing in Beijing, a National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) official said that though most of the representatives favored the second plan of reducing 63 percent of the roaming fee, no decision could be taken.

The government will release the final reform plan "as soon as possible", he said.

Chinese mobile carriers often charge users 0.60 yuan (about 8 US cents) a minute as cross-province roaming fee. And cell-phone users have long criticized the government-set tariff, saying it is "unreasonable" and should be reduced or even scrapped.

Earlier this month, the NDRC and the Ministry of Information Industry (MII) put up two reform plans for public hearing, sparking a hot debate among the country's 539 million cell-phone subscribers.

Both the proposals involved scrapping the existing roaming fee of 0.2 yuan a minute. The first proposal suggested cutting the upper limit of the roaming fees by 14.9 percent, while the second proposed reducing the upper limit by 63 percent.

Roaming fees are "unjustifiably high" and lowering the price cap would be in line with the global trend, Beijing University of Post and Telecommunications professor Zeng Jianqiu told Sina.com yesterday.

It would, however, be unreasonable to completely scrap the fees because operators still have to invest money to provide roaming services to expand their network capacity.

Impact on operators

The roaming fees reform is a battle among mobile phone users, cell-phone operators and government regulators.

As industry watchdogs, the NDRC and the MII have been wary to respond to the demands of mobile phone users because they have to maintain the revenue growth of China Mobile and China Unicom.

And regulators' efforts to cut costs in recent years have led to sell-offs of China Mobile and China Unicom stocks.

Some industry observers said the two listed companies have become "hostages" of investors, who fear the one-way billing approach would cut both the companies' revenue.

In fact, sell-offs of China Mobile and China Unicom stocks have put regulators under pressure, for they are seen as "loss of State-owned assets".

China Unicom Vice-President and former chief of China Mobile's Guangdong subsidiary Li Gang said China Mobile earned 49 billion yuan ($6.76 billion) from roaming fees in 2005, while Unicom generated only a few billion yuan. That accounted for about a fifth of China Mobile's total revenue of 243 billion yuan ($33.56 billion) that year.

In 2006, China Mobile's total revenue rose to 295.4 billion yuan ($40.80 billion) with a net profit of 66 billion yuan ($9.11 billion).

Some experts, however, said the cell-phone operators would not suffer a serious blow if roaming fees are cut because in reality the roaming fees they charge are already very low given the fierce competition in the market.

Social outcome

Some experts may regard the roaming fees as a regulatory or business issue, but there is enough evidence to show the reform will have an equally important impact on society.

An article, undersigned by the Beijing Consumers' Association, in Beijing News said the official hearing into roaming fees should be broadcast live on TV and radio to ensure transparency and avoid corruption.

A scholar named Hao Jinsong even threatened to move court against the NDRC after his request of joining the public hearing got no response.

But Zeng Jianqiu said: "I think a public hearing in itself is a great progress for the government, which is striving to build a harmonious society."

"A public hearing on such a topic could not have even been dreamed of in the past."

(China Daily 01/23/2008 page2)