China Mobile defends 4G service prices

China Mobile, the country's largest mobile operator by subscribers, said Monday the company is offering cheap monthly packages for its 4G services.

It also said its price policy prevents 4G users from incurring massive bills in response to recent online criticism of its 4G prices.

The response followed renewed controversy over China Mobile's prices for its 4G service plans which it released on January 14.

Some Web users have complained that the 4G service charges were too high and network coverage is too limited.

In a statement e-mailed to the Global Times Monday, China Mobile said it is charging 4G users 0.29 yuan ($0.05) for every extra megabyte beyond those in the packages and stops charging users if they exceed their package by 500 yuan.

The Internet usage function will be suspended if users go beyond their monthly package traffic flow by 15 gigabytes and can only resume Internet usage after they dial China Mobile's service hotline, it said.

The statement said each individual user can use the maximum 50 gigabytes of Internet usage monthly and can only resume Internet usage the following month if they exceed the limit.

China Mobile also noted in the statement that the company is offering 4G voice service for 20 percent less than the previous 3G service and a large number of promotional plans for 4G mobile data.

On January 28, Li Guoqing, CEO of dangdang.com, the country's leading B2C e-commerce company, wrote on the firm's microblog that if the 4G service can deliver speeds as fast as promised, users could use up 300 megabytes within three seconds.

"If they forget to shut down the Internet usage on their phones one night, they might lose their apartment to China Mobile overnight," he wrote.

On January 14, China Mobile announced a unified price plan for its 4G services, which covers data traffic, domestic calls and data service.

The cheapest monthly package, which combines data traffic and domestic calls, costs 138 yuan, for 600 megabytes of mobile data and 500 minutes of the Chinese mainland calls. The highest costs 588 yuan, including 5 gigabytes of mobile data and 4,000 minutes of calls nationwide.

One day later it unveiled its prices for Apple's smartphones.

The contracted version with a two-year plan comes in at a starting price tag of 5,488 yuan for the iPhone 5S and 4,688 yuan for the iPhone 5C.

The packages cost more than the ones offered by China Unicom and China Telecom when they first partnered with Apple to sell Apple's iPhones

China Mobile was granted a 4G -license by the Industry and Information Technology Ministry on December 4. It is the first among three domestic carriers to offer 4G services. By the end of 2013, China Mobile had 4G services covering 16 cities. The company aims to extend the network to at least 340 cities in the Chinese mainland by the end of 2014.

China Telecom is expected to issue 4G cell phone numbers Friday and China Unicom will start commercial use of 4G services in major cities in March, Guangzhou-based news portal dayoo.com reported in January.

"The high prices charged by China Mobile for 4G prevents a large number of users from using the service all at once as the company's service infrastructure such as network coverage and stations is not sufficient to meet the surging demand," Ma Jihua, a telecom analyst with Beijing Daojing Consultant Co, told the Global Times.

"The launch of 4G by other carriers such as China Unicom can gradually help lower the service prices as competition gets fiercer," Ma said.