The three major operators have cancelled data roaming charges, and data charges still have room for reduction

Recently, China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom have successively issued announcements to implement the national policy of speeding up and reducing fees. From July 1, 2018, the data "roaming" fee will be cancelled, and the provincial data of new and old users will be upgraded to domestic data (excluding Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan). It is reported that the three major telecom operators have completed the sorting of tariff packages, clarified the adjustment rules, and are carrying out system joint debugging tests, customer service training and emergency plan preparation.

In the opinion of independent telecom analyst Fu Liang, the cancellation of data "roaming" fees will help simplify the packages of operators. "The biggest industry change trend will be a reduction in the number of packages of operators," he said. In the future, operators will make unified plans at the group level, and the price packages are expected to be divided into three categories: high, medium and low. The entry threshold for unlimited packages is expected to drop to around 50 or 60 yuan.

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Communications industry observer Xiang Ligang also pointed out that the cancellation of data roaming fees will help drive an increase in user data usage and the development of operators' data services. In the long run, both users and the industry will benefit from the further popularization and improvement of user data applications.

In fact, as early as this year during the "Two Sessions", the "Government Work Report" proposed to cancel the data roaming fee and reduce the mobile network data charges by at least 30% within the year. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology subsequently set a timetable and announced that the data "roaming fee" would be canceled on July 1. On May 17, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission issued the "Implementation Opinions on Deepening the Promotion of Network Speed ​​​​Up and Fee Reduction and Accelerating the Cultivation of New Momentum for Economic Development in 2018". The implementation opinions proposed to cancel the mobile data "roaming" fee from July 1, encourage basic telecommunications companies to launch large data packages and other data reduction measures, and reduce the average unit price of mobile data by more than 30% within the year.

The cancellation of data roaming fees is not just a move by the three major operators to respond to government policies. In Fu Liang's view, the cancellation of data roaming fees has nothing to do with 5G. The decline in data charges is first of all due to technological progress, and secondly, the characteristics of operator network billing, the more you use, the cheaper it is. Fu Liang believes that the data charges of 5G packages will continue to drop significantly in the future. 5G is mainly high-definition video traffic, which needs to be cheap enough for everyone to dare to use it.

Fu Liang said that mobile data charges are still benefiting from the technology upgrade brought by 4G, and data charges will continue to decline rapidly. "There is no problem in achieving the goal of a 30% decline in data charges this year." He further said that in fact, according to the operating data and financial reports released by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the three major operators, the average data charge in the first five months has dropped by nearly 50%.

In addition, Xiang Ligang also pointed out that from the long-term overall trend, traffic charges still have room to fall. From 2G, 3G, and 4G, the price of traffic has been falling. In the 5G era, the charge for 1G traffic is expected to be around 1 yuan. Technological progress will be one of the important factors driving the reduction of charges.