HISTORY OF CELLPHONE IN CHINA

 In 214 B.C., Qin Shi Huang, the First Emperor of China, started wireless communication to alert
the invasion of the Xiongnus using the smoke signals, over theGreat Wall just completed[citation needed]
 In 1995, wireless telephone communication in the modern sense started by the Ministry of Posts
and Telecommunications of China, using GSM technology. A nation-wide network was completed in
the following year.[1]
 In 2000, the fixed telephone company (China Telecom) and two cell phone telephone companies
(China Mobile and China Unicom) were spun off from the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications
 In 2002, the fixed telephone company was split into two: China Netcom for North
China and China Telecom for South China
 Until 2008, China's cell phone service was provided by the three companies:
 GSM service from China Mobile
 GSM and CDMA service (begun in 2002) from China Unicom
 PHS service from the two fixed phone companies: China Netcom and China Telecom
 In 2008, another reorganization of the telecommunications industry was made a year before
the Third generation (3G) service was granted.
[edit]Mobile phone service providers
After the 2008 reorganization of China's telecommunication industry, there are now three cell phone
service providers.

[edit]China Mobile
China Mobile (Chinese: 中国移动) continues the old China Mobile's GSM service, absorbed China
Railway Communication, and began 3G service using TD-SCDMA, China's own technology.

[edit]China Unicom
China Unicom (Chinese: 中国联通) continues the old China Unicom's GSM service, absorbed the
old China Netcom's network of fixed telephones in the north of theYangtze River in China, and started 3G
service using W-CDMA technology.

[edit]China Telecom
China Telecom (Chinese: 中国电信) continues PHS service of the old China Netcom and China Telecom,
continues the old China Telecom's network of fixed telephones in the south of the Yangtze River, and
began 3G service using CDMA2000 technology.

[edit]Mobile phone industry

Wireless communication is regulated by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. The mobile
phone industry in China has grown to become a large industry, including research of new technology,
manufacturing of cell phones and building of telephone networks, participated by not only the domestic
companies but also the foreign companies, such as:

 Datang Telecom (Research and development of China's 3G TD-SCDMA technology)  Alcatel-Lucent

 Huawei Technologies  Ericsson
 ZTE  Nokia-Siemens N

Huawei Technologies is expected to surpass Nokia-Siemens Networks and Alcatel-Lucent to become the
second largest manufacturer of telecommunications equipment, after Ericsson, in 2009.

ZTE and China Mobile have done turnkey mobile phone network projects in Pakistan, Ethiopia, etc.

[edit]Mobile phones
[edit]Mobile phone manufacturers
 BBK Electronics  Nokia China
 Dopod  NIVS China
 Haier  Motorola China
 Huawei  Samsung Electron
 Kejian  LG China
 Konka Group  Sony Ericsson Ch
 Legend Group  Apple Inc. China
 Lenovo clipped.)

 Ningbo Bird  Sharp Corporation

 TCL Corporation  Philips China

 Yulong  BlackBerry China

 ZTE  Google China (Th

due to the censorship d
[edit]Domestics sales
The domestic sales of cell phone made a breakthrough of 100 million in China in 2006.

In 2007, the domestic sales of cell phone in china were 190 million, increased by 74% as compared with
2007. The impetus mainly came from the rapid growth of new mobile phone users and old
customers' upgrading demands. Of 190 million cell phones, 140 million were made through formal
channels, while the rest were made through informal channels such
as smuggling, counterfeiting andrenovating.
[edit]Sales volume
For year of 2007, sales volume had reached about 23 billion USD, increased by 17% as compared with
2006. The drop of cell phones' average price made the increment of sales volume lower than the
increment of sales because mobile communication company vigorously promoted the sales of cell phones
binding to their service which have lower price.

[edit]Export volume
The export volume of China's cell phones added up to a record high of 385 million in 2006, increased by
69.3% as compared with 2005. In 2007, this figure reached 483 million, increased by 125.45% as
compared with 2006. As far as 2006, the export volume had reached 31.214 billion USD, increased by
52.47% as compared with 2005. The export volume of 2007 was 35.6 billion dollars, increased by
114.01% as compared with 2006.

[edit]Development trend
The latest 2–3 years' development trend (2005–2008) has showed that the mainland market is developing
in two directions, one of which is the extremely low price cell phones in emerging rural market; the other
is multimedia cell phones with diverse functions such as mobile television, MP3 and GPS.

[edit]Pricing

China's cell phone market is dominated by products with price under 2000 RMB yuan (about 290 dollars).
Products at this price have accounted for 60% of the whole cell phone market, competing with China's
local brands, informal cell phones and international brands.

[edit]Some features of China's mobile phone

 All cell phone service must be prepaid. Pre-payment can be made by buying a card (50 or 100
yuan) and calling the cell phone company, or through commercial banks. When out of town, pre-
payment is not easy, usually solved by calling a friend in your own town to add money.
 There is a clear distinction of cell phone and cell phone service in China, unlike some countryies
such as Japan where the cell phone is sold by and locked to the cell phone service companies. This
tradition was broken by the 2009 introduction of Apple Inc.'s iPhone introduction.
 Stealing of cell phones and therefore SIM cards is quite common. When a cell phone is stolen,
the owner must visit the cell phone service company to cancel the previous card, at the same time
retaining the previous phone number and pre-payment.
 A short message (SMS) or duanxin (Chinese: 短信), usually 0.10 yuan per message (up to 160
alphabetic or 70 Chinese characters), can be sent to any other cell phones across different cell phone
service companies, GSM, CDMA or PHS.
 Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) or caixin (Chinese: 彩信) is also available, usually 0.3 yuan
per message (up to 50 kilobytes).
 Calling (Chinese: 彩铃), usually 5 yuan per month, is an additional service by which the called
party can send as the ring tone to the calling party the music (or any kind of sound) that the called
party likes . Usually detested by foreigners, but loved by the Chinese young.
[edit]See also

 Mobile phone
 Telecommunications industry in China
 Communications in China
[edit]References

1. ^ Baidu Encyclopedia: China Mobile Communications Corporation's History (in Chinese)

[edit]External links

 Plus Eight Star