China hobbles mobile users
p2p news / p2pnet: Under a new regulation, all mobile phone users in Communist China will soon have to register – or lose their connections.
About 200 million subscribers who use prepaid cards will be affected, says Xinhua, the state news agency.
The idea is to "stem rampant telephone fraud and illegal text massaging," the story has a Ministry of Information Industry (MII) spokesman saying.
"The subscribers will have their services cut off if they don’t comply with the regulation, said Chen Yuping, director of the exchanging center with the MII’s telecommunication institute," according to Xinhua.
The new regulation is expected to be issued this month.
Total sales in China’s mobile phone market hit 61 million sets in the first nine months of 2005, including 10% generated by telecom operators, says CRI Today.
Also read:-
Xinhua – China to ask mobile phone users to register against telephone fraud, December 3, 2005
CRI Today – Overview of China’s Mobile Phone Market, November 29, 2005
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December 6th, 2005 at 3:50 am
Well that’s just lovely. Now that there’s a “precedent”, i’m sure we can all expect our own govts to do exactly the same thing.
All in the name of “fighting terrorism” i’m sure.
December 6th, 2005 at 11:23 am
What is “text massaging”?
Do you have to set your cellular telephone to vibrate for this feature to work?
What is the difference between legal text massaging and illegal text massaging? Does it have something to do with what part of one’s personage the phone is touching at the time the text massage comes in?
Why don’t we have this in North America?
December 6th, 2005 at 5:29 pm
Text messaging has been around for ages, its used pretty much every where except the US. Something to do with patience I am told!
SMS is very much like a plain text email that can be sent from GSM phones. There are also applications which allow messaging from a PC to another PC, or more likely to spam phone users.
Assuming you are not being sarcastic, I think the Chinese have a problem with the content, not the protocol?
Anyway, the US has push to talk, we donât! Well not properly. Its pretty much the same thing, just while you talk, we spend time typing messages into a tiny keyboard.
December 7th, 2005 at 12:09 pm
Please re-read the third paragraph of the featured article more carefully. The quote from the Chinese official is about “illegal text mAssaging” (not mEssaging.) Then please re-read my post in the proper context now that you now that it’s content is based on the misused word in the featured article.
–TurboGeek