BEIJING-The mobile Internet revolution is knocking on China’s door. With 60 million mobile-phone subscribers and only 10 million people surfing the Internet using personal computers, Web access through mobile phones is a hot topic in China. Web portals, such as Sohu and Sina, and mobile-phone vendors Nokia and Ericsson offer Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) Web sites and handsets.
For now, only around 2,000 mobile-phone subscribers use the WAP services offered by China Mobile and China Unicom, but China Mobile’s Vice President Lu Xiangdong told the GSM China 2000 Conference, focused on the theme of mobile Internet Protocol (IP) in Beijing in June, he expected the number to hit 800,000 by the end of this year and reach 4 million next year.
China’s two mobile-phone operators started offering free trial WAP services in March. China Mobile planned to start charging for the service in June, but decided to extend the trial period until 20 September. Bandwidth and download speed remain slow, and content is still sparse. For now, mobile access is limited to weather forecasts, ticket booking and stock quotes. Online trading is expected to start in July.
Pricing has not been fixed yet, but will largely determine the success or failure of WAP services. China Mobile’s Lu said prices would be set to cultivate the market. A recently cited market survey showed only 1 percent of respondents willing to pay more than US$12 per month for the service. Banking and e-commerce through WAP-enabled phones is still some way off.
U.S.-based Gwcom signed an agreement with China-based Suntek Information Enterprises to enable customers to use mobile phones to listen to e-mail and reply by voice, as well as browse Web sites and shop through voice commands, rather than by keying in instructions.
Sales of WAP-enabled mobile phones so far remain sluggish in China. Still, Internet access through mobile phones has a bright future. China Mobile is already testing next-generation services called General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) and will end trials next year in Beijing, Shanghai and four provinces in east and south China to commence commercial service. GPRS will largely solve the bandwidth problem, according to its proponents.
Zhao Xiaofan, deputy chief of the division for promoting computerization of the Ministry of Information Industry (MII), predicted that by 2002, most of the 65 million Internet users in China will use mobile phones, not PCs, to access the Internet.
