MIIT Issues Measures Aimed at Resale of Mobile Communications Services
Last week, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT)issued a set of regulations aimed at further regulating the resale of mobile communications services, an area that has long been rumored to be opening to greater private investment.
In 2013, MIIT opened telecoms resale services, through which companies can repackage the services they buy from the basic telecom operators before selling them to clients using their own brands, to a pilot program. To date, several dozen Chinese companies have partnered with China's three telecoms carriers - China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom - to offer these services. The recently updated Telecoms Service Classification Catalog (2015 edition) places telecoms resale services in the value-added service category, and an official interpretation provided by MIIT promised to encourage greater private investment in this category.
The new measures, however, appear to clamp down on the existing pilot model, highlighting apparent security risks that have arisen in the "improper implementation" of the pilot model. Among other requirements, the new measures call on companies to:
- Implement real-name registration for all telephone numbers, in line with"PRC Counter-Terrorism Law"
- Cease any third-party resale activities, where companies repackage or resell indirectly from the telecom carriers
- Create effective mechanisms to prevent misuses of communication services, such as garbage SMS, fraudulent phone calls, etc.
In sum, the new measures appear to place much greater responsibility, and potential liability, on resale service operators. The measures conclude with a warning and deadline: resale operators that fail to enact full real-name telephone registration within one month will be "severely handled in accordance with relevant regulations."
