The country's biggest fixed telecommunication operator, China Telecom Corp, has started the commercial operation of its China Vnet broadband business brand, trying to emulate the success of its sister company China Mobile with partnership with its service providers.

"Before, telecom operators were busy with building networks, while service providers (SPs) were troubled by a lack of efficient ways to charge users, but China Vnet aims to solve these problems," said Chang Xiaobing, deputy general manager of the telecom giant, yesterday in Beijing.

China Vnet aims to build a unified Internet platform for service providers (SPs) and Internet users, where the latter can find varied content such as online games, audio and video files, and online education.

The users pay for the services together with their phone bills, and the telecom operator and service providers share the income from that system.

The company said 26 SPs had already joined the platform, and it aimed to have 1 million fee-paying users this year.

China Telecom announced yesterday that its broadband Internet subscriber base reached 6 million by September 10, compared with the nation's total of 9.8 million by June 30.

The focus of China Vnet this year will be on online games and entertainment.

Qian Yongqiang, chief executive officer of online education provider TOL24.com, said: "The biggest benefit of China Vnet for us is to get users' payments quickly through phone bills."

China Mobile launched its data service brand Monternet last year and has already achieved good results with the cooperation of service providers, by featuring an easy billing mechanism and rich content.

(China Daily September 17, 2003)