Virtual operators will welcome more than 24 million users with official licenses
At the 2016 China Virtual Operation Development Forum, Wen Ku, director of the Information and Communication Development Department of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said that the two years of virtual commerce pilot had promoted the speed increase and cost reduction, and promoted the innovation of the telecommunications industry, but there were also problems such as the lack of implementation of the real name system and a high rate of violations.
In December 2013, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of the People's Republic of China officially issued the pilot approval for mobile resale business to 11 communication virtual operators (hereinafter referred to as "virtual operators"), and the introduction of private capital into the communication industry began. At present, the two-year pilot period has ended, and the pilot virtual quotient will become a regular one soon.
Zou Xueyong, secretary-general of China Virtual Operator Industry Alliance, told reporters: "Up to now, the number of virtual business users has exceeded 24 million, and virtual business has also explored a diversified and personalized business model. This year, virtual business will usher in new development opportunities after obtaining an official license."
However, in response to the real name system mentioned by Wen Ku, Zou Xueyong also said that the information fraud, garbage messages and other problems existing in the 170, 171 and other virtual business segments have seriously damaged the image of the virtual business. One of the keys to the future development of the virtual business is to do a good job in the real name system registration, so as to rectify the illegal activities in the use of the virtual business segment, and establish the brand and reputation of the virtual business industry.
The results of the virtual quotient assessment in the pilot two years were recently released
Virtual operators contract or wholesale the right to use part of the communication network from the three basic operators of China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom, and then sell communication services to consumers through their own billing system, segment, marketing and management systems.
Since the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology approved the first batch of pilot enterprises of virtual operators at the end of 2013, a total of 42 enterprises have received the pilot approval. According to the data disclosed by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, 39 of the 42 enterprises have been officially registered so far.
Although there is a gap between the number of users and the previous expectation, according to Wenku, there are many "commendable points" in the two-year pilot work. He mentioned that a number of private enterprises with characteristics have entered the basic telecommunications market, including channel type, industry application type, Internet type, network infrastructure type and terminal manufacturing enterprises. The pilot areas are basically in influential cities across the country.
It is worth noting that last year, Premier Li Keqiang repeatedly asked telecom operators to speed up and reduce fees. In Wen Ku's view, virtual merchants have played a great role in promoting the speed increase and fee reduction, especially in reducing the unit price of tariffs and the threshold.
Zou Xueyong also said to the reporter of the Daily Economic News: "Virtual merchants took the lead in raising the slogan that the traffic is not clear, which actually plays a role of forcing the three major basic telecom operators, China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom. Virtual merchants also bring more personalized services to users in the market segments through differentiated development."
At the end of last year, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology began to assess the pilot situation of 42 virtual merchants. The reporter learned that the assessment method includes three aspects. First, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology conducts telephone spot checks on users of pilot enterprises to ask users for their evaluation of enterprise services; The second is that the pilot enterprises submit summary materials to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and the third is that government leaders visit and investigate the pilot enterprises.
According to Zou Xueyong, the assessment process has been completed, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology is making the final summary, and the assessment results may be released in the near future.
"After all the assessment work is completed, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology will issue a formal virtual business license, and then the application for virtual business license will be fully opened. Previously, some media said that a formal license will be issued in the second quarter of this year, but what I learned is that the time has not yet been set, and the regulators are still studying some details." Zou Xueyong said.
Fix the weak link and strengthen the real name registration in the future
What criteria can 42 pilot enterprises pass the assessment to become regular? Zou Xueyong told the reporter that, because of the different time when various enterprises entered the pilot project and the short time for some enterprises to develop their business, the user scale is not the main assessment standard of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. It is expected that the standard for official license issuance will focus on the comprehensive ability of the platform, information security management and control ability, and differentiated business models.
Zou Xueyong specially pointed out that the MIIT will focus on the work of virtual merchants in real name registration and information security. However, in this regard, some virtual quotients did not work well.
In recent years, the three basic operators of China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom have strengthened the management of the real name system of mobile phones. As a result, some lawbreakers began to turn to the virtual commerce office to obtain non real name numbers, and sections 170 and 171 were frequently used for advertising and even telecommunications fraud. Because there is no real name registration, even if the fraud number is reported, it is difficult to find out the criminals behind it.
"The number 170 now has a bad reputation in the society. Many people told me that if they saw the number 170, they would be killed because about 80% of it was advertising and sales promotion. The violation rate is our biggest headache now." On the above forum, Wenku highlighted the problem of information security of virtual merchants, especially the lack of real name system.
In fact, information security has always been the weakness of virtual quotients. The reporter noticed that on September 29, 2015, the Information and Communication Administration of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology held a special meeting to interview the principals of 7 mobile communication resale enterprises, including Yuante (Beijing) Communication Technology Co., Ltd., Guiyang Longma Information Technology Co., Ltd., Beijing Gome, Shenzhen Aishide Co., Ltd, Relevant enterprises are required to take practical measures to strengthen the management of junk SMS.
Zou Xueyong analyzed to the reporter: "The pilot of virtual merchants has only been two years, and the actual development has only been more than a year. The operating experience in real name management and control and system platform construction is still insufficient. Many card numbers of virtual merchants have been circulated to the card market, allowing some people to exploit loopholes."
In Zou Xueyong's opinion, information security is the most important problem that virtual merchants are facing at present, because all virtual merchants share sections 170 and 171. If an enterprise has information security problems such as spam messages and harassing calls, it will affect the entire virtual commerce industry. "Now some people may feel that the 170 segment is a fraud segment as soon as they see it. These situations have damaged the brand of virtual merchants. Therefore, it is not a matter of any enterprise to do a good job in real name system and maintain information security, but the requirements of the entire industry." Zou Xueyong said.
Wen Ku said at the forum that we should adhere to the rule of law and strengthen the real name registration.
He mentioned that this may not only be a rule issue, but also should be strengthened in terms of technical means and management methods. For enterprises, the implementation of telephone real name registration is not only an enterprise's social responsibility and legal obligation, but also an important embodiment of the enterprise's brand image, and also an important embodiment of the sustainable and healthy development of the whole resale business.
