The cancellation of data roaming charges has become inevitable, but do operators still have to wait until they get punished?

There is a theme every year. Once one is solved, the next one will surely come. The 315 event for telecom operators is an inevitable "disaster". Last year, long-distance roaming charges were cancelled, and this year it is the turn of traffic.

It is said that last year, the "Government Work Report" proposed to completely cancel domestic long-distance and roaming charges, and the mobile phone roaming charges that have been collected for more than 20 years have bid farewell to the stage of history. Thanks to this, people have saved a lot of money on phone bills, and no longer have to hang up the phone in a hurry because of "expensive roaming charges" when they are out and about. These media really look down on the consumption level of Chinese people. The few yuan saved per person is not enough to buy a King of Glory skin or eat an extra pancake.

However, since the leaders attach so much importance to it and the people are so concerned about it, it is only natural for telecom operators to lower prices. Against the background of an annual theme, it is not surprising that the distinction between local traffic and national traffic will be cancelled.

In reality, most of the 4G data packages launched by China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom will distinguish between local data, provincial data and national data packages. Local data is generally limited to use within the city or province and cannot be used in all provinces, while national data is generally not a large amount in the package and is relatively more expensive when purchased separately.

Therefore, this phenomenon is called "data roaming" by some media, and gradually becomes a new focus of hype. Price reduction is a good thing, and it is free. Consumers hope to spend less money anyway.

What is the attitude of telecom operators? It is said that China Mobile staff explained that there are differences in population, economy, age, etc. between provinces and cities, so the traffic consumption is different. Network resources are uneven in different places, and traffic consumption is also different. Provinces with relatively low traffic consumption may give away surplus local traffic to consumers or sell it to consumers at a low price, which creates local traffic and national general traffic.

China Unicom explained that it launched traffic divided by region in order to meet the needs of more people. China Unicom Group launched a nationwide universal traffic package, and local companies will launch some local traffic packages based on local characteristics, mainly for people who do not travel frequently. Therefore, there is a distinction between local, provincial, and domestic traffic.

China Telecom explained that due to the large population in my country, it is difficult to satisfy everyone, and the population mobility is also fast, so China Telecom has launched a variety of traffic packages for different regions, different times, and different terminal types. In order to meet the differentiated needs of users, China Telecom provides diversified traffic products differentiated by region, time, content, and terminal type, as well as various preferential forms such as promotional free traffic, providing more choices for 4G users.

The above are all rumors on the Internet and cannot be verified. However, the reason why telecom operators distinguish between local traffic and national traffic is mainly because telecom operators have been implementing localized operations for many years. Each province, each city, and each county is an independent company. Especially when it comes to provinces, they often have independent accounting without distinguishing between local and national. The operator's system needs to be changed.

In addition, the traffic of operators needs to flow across the country, which involves the historical grievances between China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom. Due to the problem of backbone network, China Mobile needs to make inter-network settlement with China Unicom and China Telecom. If this problem is not solved, the relevant departments have no way to force the cancellation of local traffic differences.

We should see that even the United States, a country with highly developed information technology, has suffered and is suffering from huge setbacks in its information industry due to policy reasons, so much so that the US government had to cancel the so-called network neutrality principle years ago. The result of years of regulation has not only failed to make the US industry rise, but has also caused the US telecommunications equipment industry to almost completely withdraw from the global market.

The 5G era is coming, and the investment this time is obviously huge. Telecom operators need to have enough funds to invest in construction, and operation and maintenance are even more detailed work. Ordinary people only see network coverage and speed, but without the efforts of millions of communications industry employees behind them, all this is just wishful thinking.

In short, in China's telecommunications industry, difficulties are beyond words, price cuts are a must, and since everyone has set their sights on the so-called "data roaming" problem, it will definitely be solved. More importantly, China Unicom and Tencent are promoting Internet data cards as a marketing gimmick, and the game industry's routines have penetrated into the communications field, so the operators cannot avoid this disaster.