China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) has commissioned its subordinate academy and the three basic telecom operators to formulate a criteria of assessment of pilot virtual carriers and will launch the assessment at the end of this year.
The Xinhua-run Economic Information Daily reported on Tuesday that ministry will grant formal licenses of mobile telecom resale business to the virtual carriers who pass the assessment as early as at the beginning of 2016. After that, the telecom giants, China Mobile (CHL.NYSE; 00941.HK), China Unicom (CHU.NYSE; 00762.HK; 600050.SH) and China Telecom (CHA.NYSE, 00728.HK), will sign formal agreements with the licensed virtual carriers.
The mobile telecom resale business will be formally launched in the first quarter. The pilot virtual carriers had only developed 11.23 million users of mobile telecom resale business by end-August, accounting for 0.9 percent of the total number of mobile phone users in China.
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