On August 8th, an Internet user posted dialogue screenshots with China Telecom's customer service staff on the Weibo. According to the information, he couldn’t get access to the foreign websites, although the network has been repaired for several times.
The service staff admitted that it was indeed very slow to visit foreign websites in Shanghai, and told him that he could consult for relevant services on getting access to foreign websites in mid-August. Then the user asked whether he should be charged for visiting the foreign websites afterwards, the service staff said: “Yes. We are so sorry for the inconvenience that we brought."
Judging by the information that the user provided, the service staff also mentioned that the new network service that will be launched in mid-August is similar with the “international high-quality network” service that China Telecom launched previously.
The “international high-quality network” service is one of the optional packages of China Telecom e-home packages, the tariff is 50 yuan per month, the foreign websites access speed and stability will greatly improve by using this service. However, this service was canceled in July.
However, rumor goes that China Telecom will launch a speed-up service called “international nitrogen cylinder”. There is also a "nitrogen cylinder" service that can enhance the stability of visiting foreign websites, but only open to FTTH optical broadband network users of China Telecom Shanghai branch, the tariff is 2 yuan/3 hours and can be used continuously for 24 hours.
Yesterday, China Telecom Shanghai branch issued a statement in its official post bar, denying the speculation of limitation on the access of foreign websites, it said "China Telecom will not deliberately restrict such user experiences", it also clarified that the online rumors about the price of "nitrogen cylinder" service was untrue, at present, this service was still in close beta test stage for free.
Zou Xueyong, the secretary of China MVNO Union, said that there were only 8 Internet main node relay stations in the global network, which were located in the US, Germany and other countries, but no station was located in China. "The reason that it is slow to visit foreign websites is that the main content servers are located in foreign countries, the network goes through nodes in the international interconnection process, which definitely affects the websites visiting experiences."
He said that although China was in disadvantageous position in the distribution of Internet resources, however, it was reasonable for customers to complain about the network speed after paying for the Internet access tariff. However, he believes that the operators could make much better performance in this process, "at present, China has got the largest Internet users in the world, but there is still a lot of development space for the network infrastructure".
China Telecom Shanghai branch said yesterday, at present, access on certain direction to the international ports were busy, therefore affecting the experiences on visiting some foreign websites during this period, and China Telecom Shanghai branch was coordinating for expansion. However, as foreign operators, interoperability and other factors are involved in this process, it needs certain time to solve this problem. According to one of the service staffs of China Telecom, the network pipeline expansion will be carried out in the end of this month, by that time, it will be improved to visit foreign websites.