Deputy Chief Engineer of China's Ministry of Information Industry: 3G should be high-quality but not expensive

JasonYoo

Deputy Chief Engineer of China's Ministry of Information Industry: 3G should be high-quality but not expensive [Copy link]

According to a report by China Securities Journal on April 13, at the 2006 Shenzhen 3G Asia Summit held on April 12, Yang Peifang, deputy chief engineer of the Telecommunication Research Institute of the Ministry of Information Industry, said that 3G should be "high but not expensive" and that 3G should face the mass market rather than the niche market.

　　Yang Peifang believes that whether 3G will be cheaper than 2G depends on whether there is a market and demand, and the key is the cost performance of 3G. The development law of mobile communications from 1G, 2G to 3G is a process of continuous technological progress, continuous cost reduction, and continuous price reduction. 3G is high but not expensive, which is constrained by the characteristics of the network economy. In the network economy, resources are no longer scarce, desires are no longer unlimited, and cost laws are different. The more advanced the technology, the lower the cost should be, not higher. Studies have shown that the cost of building a 3G network is already 1/2 of that of 2G, and the cost of a 3G mobile phone is about 1.5 to 2 times that of a 2G mobile phone.

　　Yang Peifang believes that the future development of 3G faces three major risks, the most important of which is how manufacturers and operators position 3G applications and the price of 3G mobile phones. The other two risks are whether operators can bear losses for a long time and whether the government can provide adequate support.

　　Yang Peifang quoted a Nobel Prize winner in the United States on the "economics of the poor", believing that the future economic impetus will no longer rely on the rich, but on the poor to drive the entire economy. If we find ways to seek use value for the poor or make them obtain reasonable profits, we can actually start a larger market and establish a mechanism that can also make it profitable to serve the poor. Yang Peifang believes that the telecommunications service industry can naturally integrate with the poor, because the characteristics of communication and information networks are information sharing, unlike material resources that are exclusive, and research by United Nations agencies has found that the use value of advanced information technology is higher in remote areas. Lu Qijun,

　　director of the New Industry Research Department of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council Research Center, also agreed with Yang Peifang's view of "high but not expensive". He said that the so-called "high" means that 3G has better performance than 2G, and "not expensive" means that the price should be lower than 2G.

　　He believes that we must correctly understand China's current stage of social development and specific national conditions, and adopt appropriate 3G development strategies based on the actual needs of 3G. If telecom operators position future 3G services for high-end customers, hoping to occupy the market and increase revenue through high prices, they will inevitably fail. This does not conform to China's national conditions, and analyzing from the perspective of people's consumption needs also ignores the specific consumer groups that 3G value-added services are aimed at. [I]