How difficult it is to increase network speed and reduce fees

In response to the livelihood issue of "speeding up and reducing fees" of the Internet, which is of most concern to ordinary consumers, the government has intervened since 2015 and vigorously promoted network operators to take the initiative to speed up and reduce fees to reduce people's communication expenses. Premier Li Keqiang of the State Council has also urged the implementation of fee reduction work on different occasions, and relevant ministries and commissions and several basic telecommunications companies have also responded. However, in 2017, it is not difficult to find that the "speeding up and reducing fees" of the Internet is still widely concerned by the society. Various specific "speeding up and reducing fees" measures introduced in the past have little effect. Although according to statistics from operators, both fixed and mobile networks have seen a significant decline in charging items and amounts. For example, the cancellation of domestic long-distance charges and domestic roaming charges for mobile phones, and the significant reduction of international long-distance charges for mobile phones, with a maximum reduction of 93%, people do not feel that they have gained much benefit, which makes "speeding up and reducing fees" a long-term and continuous work. Only by complying with the new expectations of the people and the new wave of development of the data economy, accelerating the pace of network speeding up and reducing fees, and benefiting consumers, can this road be considered to be wonderful and reach the end.

[[208262]]

China Mobile, China Unicom, China Telecom and China Broadcasting Corporation are the main operators of the "speed up and fee reduction" of the network. The network services used by people in their daily lives are basically all provided by these four operators. The specific implementation of "speed up and fee reduction" is completed by these operators. "Speed ​​up and fee reduction" includes two aspects: on the one hand, it is to reduce people's daily communication expenses; on the other hand, it is to allow people to enjoy higher network access services. These two aspects are somewhat contradictory. If people's daily communication expenses are reduced, the income of operators will decrease, and if the income is reduced, there will be a lack of funds to invest in new network construction, and "increasing network speed" is just empty talk. Therefore, in the past two years, several operators have taken the initiative to reduce fees for services with a small number of audiences, reducing a certain amount of income, but have increased income in other places for non-personal users. For example, we see that China Mobile achieved 668.3 billion yuan in applications in 2015, 708.4 billion yuan in operating income in 2016, and 388.9 billion yuan in the first half of 2017. Although China Mobile has not grown as fast as before in the past three years, it has not reduced its income and its profitability remains strong. In fact, the operators also have their own difficulties. If they simply reduce the user fees, not only will the operating income be greatly reduced, but it will also affect the construction of new networks, which will inevitably slow down the investment in 4G and 5G and home broadband, and people will not be able to enjoy higher-speed network services. Although the four operators are all state-owned enterprises, there is still fierce competition. Everyone wants to be the boss. If others move faster in the construction of new networks, it will inevitably attract many people to try and use them, and they will fall behind. Therefore, in terms of "speeding up and reducing fees", everyone is "riding the donkey to watch the script, and wait and see". If you reduce, I will also reduce, if you build a new network, I will also build a new data center. No one dares to take too big a step at once, which is hard for the general public, who hope that communication and network fees can be cheaper, but they have not been able to get it.

The road to "speeding up and reducing fees" is very difficult. Even though there has long been a consensus at the national government level and in the operator industry, no one has the right answer as to how and when to do it. They can only cross the river by feeling the stones, throw stones to test the water, and adjust some policy measures in a timely manner according to people's feedback. Operators who undertake the mission of "speeding up and reducing fees" are essentially profit-based enterprises. At the same time, as listed companies, operators are responsible for shareholders. As central enterprises assessed by the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, operators have certain profit growth indicators every year. In this case, "speeding up and reducing fees" is to reduce the real money of operators. No one's willingness will be active and strong, but the requirements of the central government cannot be violated, and operators are also uncomfortable in the middle. On the road of "speeding up and reducing fees", it is not the one who reduces the most ruthlessly and the fastest. If it is not done well, the order of the entire communication market will be disrupted, and their own operations may also fall into crisis. "Speeding up and reducing fees" has become an inevitable trend, but this process may last for a long time, and there is no end in sight. As long as people need to use network communications, they wish they could use it for free, so there is no specific standard, and people's feelings about the fee reduction are not obvious. In fact, except for China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom, the profits are already very low and on the verge of losses. If the revenue is reduced blindly, the operators will be overwhelmed. Therefore, before implementing the "speed up and reduce fees" policy, the first consideration of the operators is not to make losses. If there are no users and they cannot pay enough for the expansion and research and development costs, the network will be stagnant. It is precisely because of these fees that more people can enjoy the high-speed network at any time. These are complementary.

Operators are struggling on the road of "speeding up and reducing fees", and it can be said that they are all showing their magical powers. In fact, it was just that a few years ago, operators were too comfortable, with revenue and profits reaching new highs year by year. As state-owned central enterprises, they should serve the people and return profits to the people, rather than constantly taking profits from the people. At that time, working in an operator company meant good benefits, high wages, and leisurely work, and making money easily, just like the banking industry a few years ago. As state-owned central enterprises, they should return wealth to the people, rather than blindly taking income from the people. Now they are on the normal development track. In fact, as an operator, you can also keep your income and profits from loss when implementing "speeding up and reducing fees". For example: After decades of network construction, many parts of the network are seriously aging, and there are many unreasonable places in interconnection, which greatly reduces the network bandwidth. By optimizing the network, we can improve the network utilization rate without increasing the investment in network construction. We should boldly introduce new technologies to improve the efficiency of the entire network operation, reduce the expenses of network operation and maintenance, and reduce the network operation and maintenance costs of operators. The previous operation and maintenance work method of manually entering commands one by one on the equipment should be eliminated and handed over to the controller to complete automatically. We should guide network equipment manufacturers technically, have greater bargaining power in equipment procurement, reduce the purchase cost of single equipment by increasing the purchase quantity, and become a comprehensive service provider, rather than relying on simply renting out computer rooms and equipment to generate income, and increase value-added service income.

For operators, "speeding up and reducing fees" on the Internet is undoubtedly a revolution for themselves. If they are not handled properly, it will end up in a thankless situation. This is a road of no return, which is so difficult.