China Unicom held the 2016 annual shareholder meeting this week. Its chairman Wang Xiaochu said it plans to offer roaming services in some remote areas relying on the network of China Mobile or other operators.
The roaming refers to the national roaming between competitive telecom operators.
Industry insiders think that national roaming between competitive telecom operators is good for China's three state-run telecom operators - the one with inadequate network coverage can eliminate its negative market image; the one with significant coverage can improve network utilization efficiency and generate more revenue. What's more, some operators can speed up the spectrum refarming and shake off the shackles of weak industry chain with the gradual promotion of national roaming between different telecom operators.
Mr. Wang said, "China Unicom is poorer than China Mobile in capital, and China's southeast coastal areas become our focus, and we choose to rely on network of other operators like China Mobile as for remote areas, except the key cities like Lhasa. We plan to develop large business with small funds as far as possible and improve capital utilization, which is also the idea for our 5G development."
National roaming between competitive telecom operators can already be achieved technically in China, but China's three major telecom operators haven't reached an HLR agreement of authentication open to each other by far.
Anyway, it is imperative for China Unicom to reach the HLR agreement and discuss the billing with the other two operators, especially China Mobile since it has expressed intention to implement national roaming between telecom operators.