The major domestic mobile telecom service operators, including China Mobile and China Telecom, have announced plans to phase out roaming charges amid Chinese government calls and improved consumer use of fourth-generation (4G) systems.
State-owned China Mobile plans to phase out its long-distance roaming charges by the end of 2016, an employee of the company, who prefers to be unnamed, told the Global Times on Sunday.
The cancellation was already under way, and roaming charges for the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei area ended in August 2015, said the employee.
China Telecom rolled out a similar plan on July 15.
Yang Jie, CEO of China Telecom, said at the 8th Intelligent Terminal Industry Forum that in addition to abolishing roaming charges, all the company's services will gradually be charged by traffic, including voice calls, domestic news portal 163.com reported in July.
The carriers' moves followed an announcement by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) in April, which urged the three major telecom service providers to pursue the marketization of telecom fees and accelerate the pace of abolishing roaming charges.
The MIIT's involvement largely pushed forward the process, experts said.
In line with the government's agenda, it is estimated that another telecom industry player, China Unicom, will follow the steps taken by its competitors and announce plans to terminate roaming fees in the near future, according to experts.
"Roaming charges are out of date, and currently, there is virtually no country in the world that still charges for that," said Liu Dingding, an independent industry analyst, noting that the trend of abandoning these fees and charging by traffic is gaining momentum in the telecom industry.
Li Yue, China Mobile's CEO, said at a press conference Thursday that the move to phase out roaming fees will pose huge risks for the company, given that voice services generated 37 percent of the company's revenues in the first half of 2016, the newspaper Guangzhou Daily reported on Sunday.
Yet for telecom service providers like China Mobile, revenues generated by traffic are on the rise.
In the first half of 2016, China Mobile's revenue increased 7.1 percent to 370 billion yuan ($56 billion), according to the company's financial statement.
Traffic revenue surged 26.7 percent to 195 billion yuan, accounting for 43.3 percent of the total and for the first time surpassing the income from traditional businesses and becoming the biggest revenue source.
As of the end of June, the company's 4G users totaled 429 million, said the statement. The figure represented 51 percent of the customer base, an increase of 28 percentage points from the same period in 2015.
"The popularity of 4G services, as well as the growing traffic revenue, heralds the time to initiate a reform to transform the revenue structure," Liu told the Global Times on Sunday, noting that industry players should shift their focus on Internet value-added service, like games and e-commerce.
