By Vivian Ni

Nov. 10 – China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) is investigating China Telecom and China Unicom – two of the country’s major telecommunications operators – over suspected monopoly in the broadband internet market. The government’s unusual anti-monopoly probe into its state-owned enterprises may lead to support for bringing in more effective competition to the country’s telecommunications sector – one of the Chinese marketplaces still under tight government control.

Regulators believe both China Telecom and China Unicom are using their dominant market position – together occupying roughly two-thirds of the current market share – to charge their competitors higher fees for broadband access while offering lower prices to non-competitors, said Li Qing, deputy director of the NDRC’s Price Supervision and Antimonopoly Department, in an interview with China’s state-run China Central Television yesterday.

“According to the Anti-Monopoly Law (AML), we call such behavior price discrimination,” Li explained. Continue reading →