Broadband prices have dropped by 90% in three years. What are the highlights of this “speed increase and fee reduction”?

"Increase the speed and fee reduction of the Internet, achieve full coverage of high-speed broadband in urban and rural areas, expand the scope of free Internet access in public places, significantly reduce the use fees of home broadband, enterprise broadband and dedicated lines, cancel the data "roaming" fee, and reduce the mobile network data charges by at least 30% within the year, so that the people and enterprises can benefit from it, and boost the construction of Digital China." This year's government work report once again sent out a "gift package" of network speed and fee reduction, which won the public's applause. Why is China vigorously promoting the "speed and fee reduction" of the Internet? What highlights and significance does "speed and fee reduction" show?

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Highlight 1: Internet fees are reduced and people feel a sense of gain

Before July 1, roaming fees will be abolished nationwide, and mobile network data charges will be reduced by at least 30% within the year... Careful people will find that the goals set for "speeding up and reducing fees" in the national network this year are very specific, which shows the Chinese government's determination and confidence in the issue of "speeding up and reducing fees."

In fact, in the past few years, China has delivered an impressive report card in speeding up and reducing fees.

"In the three years since the speed increase and fee reduction, the unit price for domestic broadband users has dropped by 90%, and the unit price for mobile communication customers has dropped by 83.5%. On September 1 last year, the long-distance roaming charges for mobile phones, which have attracted much attention from people across the country, were finally cancelled," said Miao Wei, Minister of Industry and Information Technology.

However, the "mobile phone data roaming fee" that consumers are concerned about has not yet been cancelled. This year's government work report paid full attention to this concern of the people and specifically proposed to cancel the data "roaming" fee. It can be seen that the top-level design responded quickly to the needs of the people, grasped them accurately, and made great efforts.

"Let information travel more and let people run less" is a vivid interpretation of how information technology facilitates people's lives in the Internet era. According to statistics, as of December 2017, the number of mobile Internet users in my country has reached 753 million, and the average weekly Internet time of Internet users has increased to 27 hours. It can be seen that Internet life has become a vital part of Chinese people's daily life, and speeding up and reducing fees have effectively reduced the total social cost and brought more tangible sense of gain to the people. For example, from the end of 2014 to the end of 2017, the average cost of users using 1GB of traffic has dropped from 139 yuan to 23 yuan.

By reducing traffic costs, Chinese people can benefit from online life to a greater extent, thereby achieving a visibly improved quality of life.

Highlight 2: Internet speed adds competitiveness

On the issue of speed increase and fee reduction, China's institutional advantage of concentrating resources to accomplish major tasks has once again emerged. As soon as the goals were set in this year's government work report, China's three major network operators all stated that they would resolutely implement the state's policy requirements and work arrangements for speed increase and fee reduction, actively take corresponding measures, and make speed increase and fee reduction a key task to promote them with all their strength.

China Mobile said it will go all out to promote the full coverage of high-speed broadband in urban and rural areas, significantly reduce the use fees of home broadband, enterprise broadband and dedicated lines, cancel the "roaming" fee for traffic, and reduce the mobile network traffic charges by at least 30% within the year. China Telecom said it will provide consumers with more useful, affordable and good smart information services. China Unicom said it will vigorously promote in-depth cooperation and coordination with strategic investors in 2018, build a high-quality network, innovate marketing models, and reduce the level of charges. For enterprises, although "speeding up and reducing fees" has done "subtraction" in the price of Internet fees, in the long run, it has done "addition" and improved the competitiveness of enterprises.

In fact, since the “speed increase and fee reduction”, China’s basic telecommunications companies have not lost revenue due to the speed increase and fee reduction. On the contrary, from 2014 to 2017, the growth rate of China’s telecommunications business revenue increased from -1.6% to 6.4%. Why? The reduction in tariffs has led to an increase in usage, which has led to an increase in the total revenue of telecommunications companies. Data shows that from the end of 2014 to the end of 2017, the average monthly traffic usage of each user in China increased from 209M to 1.7GB. The increase in demand brought about by the fee reduction has effectively driven the increase in the total revenue of telecommunications companies.

At the same time, "speeding up and reducing fees" has also promoted the transformation and upgrading of the communications industry to a certain extent. Internet speed and fees are important criteria for people to choose and evaluate communications operators. Under the background of "speeding up and reducing fees", competition among operators is becoming increasingly fierce. Innovation ability, service quality, and business model have become the key to success, which has also effectively driven the upgrading of the communications industry.

"Speeding up will 'increase' the competitiveness of enterprises, and reducing fees will 'reduce' the total social cost." Miao Wei said that in the next step, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology will focus on reducing mobile phone data fees, household broadband fees, enterprise broadband fees and dedicated line charges and continue to increase its efforts to ensure that the people and enterprises can truly benefit and provide support for the construction of a digital China.

Highlight 3: High-quality economic development

In essence, China's measures to promote network speed increase and fee reduction are rooted in profound social foundations and development logic. At present, China's economy is shifting from a high-speed growth stage to a high-quality development stage. In the process of supply-side structural reform, the digital economy plays an important role in optimizing China's economic development structure and promoting the transformation and upgrading of major industries.

The "speed increase and fee reduction" will not only benefit thousands of households, but will also promote the development of the digital economy, exert a "multiplier effect", and continuously push forward the construction of a cyber power. Data shows that in the past three years, the speed increase and fee reduction have effectively driven the vigorous development of information consumption and the digital economy. As of 2017, China's total information consumption reached 2.2 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 22%; the scale of the digital economy reached 27.2 trillion yuan, accounting for 32.9% of GDP. The accelerated implementation of new technologies, new businesses, and new formats such as big data, artificial intelligence, and 5G will further push the development of China's digital economy to the forefront of the world.

Today, China has fully entered the 4G era and is moving towards the 5G era. As the country with the widest fiber coverage in the world and the highest total fiber broadband users and proportion in the world, China needs to maximize the advantages of network infrastructure by "speeding up and reducing fees" to promote the development of the digital economy.

At the same time, "speeding up and reducing fees" has also effectively promoted the transformation and upgrading of China's traditional industries. Taking the manufacturing industry as an example, the "Guiding Opinions of the State Council on Deepening the Development of Industrial Internet through "Internet + Advanced Manufacturing"" issued in November 2017 pointed out that it is necessary to promote network transformation and upgrading to speed up and reduce fees. Facing the network needs of enterprises with low latency, high reliability and wide coverage, vigorously promote the construction of internal and external networks of industrial enterprises. Today, "speeding up and reducing fees" has vigorously promoted the construction of the domestic industrial Internet, thus creating a favorable technical environment for promoting the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries, accelerating the development of intelligent manufacturing, and building a manufacturing power.

This year's government report pointed out that it will vigorously promote high-quality development and focus on solving the problem of unbalanced and insufficient development. In this regard, by "speeding up and reducing fees" to allow the Internet to benefit a wider range of users, including rural and remote areas, is undoubtedly an important part of promoting high-quality development.

In this regard, Chen Zhaoxiong, Vice Minister of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said that in the future the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology will complete the task of providing fiber optic access to 130,000 administrative villages on time, with quality and quantity guaranteed; guide basic telecommunications companies to accelerate the widespread deployment of 4G networks in rural and remote areas; further strengthen coordination and cooperation among departments, promote the popularization of broadband network applications in rural areas, and help rural revitalization and development.