Clerks assist customers inside a China Mobile Ltd post-sale service hall in Beijing. The company says it has held to the philosophy of "customers, our priority; quality service, our principle" since its establishment in 2000. [Photo/Agencies]
BEIJING - China Mobile Communications Corp, the world's largest mobile telecom operator by network size and subscribers, is committed to building a responsible network and improving its service quality.
Established on April 20, 2000, China Mobile holds the philosophy of "customers, our priority; quality service, our principle". It continuously improved the network quality and provided reliable communications support for Chinese customers.
Emergency support
In 2010, Chinese people endured several natural disasters, including earthquakes, floods, droughts and typhoons. They caused many casualties and property loss in the country.
China Mobile played a vital role in providing emergency communications support during those disasters.
On April 14, 2010, a 7.1-magnitude earthquake hit Yushu county, in Northwest China's Qinghai province. The quake disconnected four optical cables and disabled 64 base stations belonging to China Mobile.
However, the demand for quick and reliable communication was surging after the earthquake in Yushu. China Mobile immediately set up a special group to deal with the crisis. It repaired the mobile network and restored it to previous conditions within a week.
Three months later, the company faced another severe challenge. On the evening of Aug 7, 2010, heavy rainfall triggered a large-scale mud slide in Zhouqu county, in Northwest China's Gansu province. Half of the town was buried under debris.
The disaster damaged seven out of nine China Mobile base stations in the county. Nonetheless, the company quickly mobilized employees for emergency support and utilized satellite communications at the most critical moments.
China Mobile dispatched workers with 20 generators and 10 emergency communication vehicles into the disaster area and managed to restore operations in the town within two days.
"I really appreciated China Mobile's help. With their sound communication signal, I was able to call my parents and tell them I was safe and sound," Ma Renlin, a Zhouqu resident said.
During the disaster period, China Mobile set up 40 phones for Zhouqu people to make free long-distance calls to their families. More than 210,000 individuals used the service, the company said.
Service guarantee
In 2010, China Mobile researched most common complaints from its clients, such as weak network coverage and the spread of spam messages. It launched a "Network Quality Competition" among all employees and solved a number of key issues that affected user experience.
The company tried actively to control spam and obscene content on mobile phones in the hope of promoting a healthy communications culture.
It strengthened the spam monitoring and management system last year. The system helped block 22.2 billion spam messages in 2010, up from 10 billion in the previous year.
China Mobile also sent short message reminders to new customers to educate them about the risks associated with spam messages.
The company continued to develop automatic dialing and testing technologies for locating and identifying websites with obscene and pornographic content. In 2010, it set up three testing centers: in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangdong.
By the end of last year, China Mobile had tested more than 2 million websites, and effectively blocked 85,280 of them and 1,667 IP addresses with obscene content.
In order to help customers better understand the company's business information and pricing packages, China Mobile initiated the "Consumer Transparency" featured services in early 2010.
The company is the first telecom carrier in China to offer such services. They included a deal that when customers subscribe to new value-added services, they will receive a text message before it is billed. Another deal allows customers to review or unsubscribe from monthly value-added service packages by simply sending "0000" to the 10086 hotline.
Network reliability
China Mobile accelerated the deployment of the third generation (3G) mobile telecommunication network in 2010. By the end of last year, the TD-SCDMA 3G network covered all cities above county level, reaching the target one year ahead of its previous plan.
By Mar 31, the number of China Mobile's 3G service subscribers climbed to 26.99 million, accounting for more than half of the total 50-odd million 3G users in China.
Deng Shoupeng, a researcher at the Development Research Center of the State Council, said the homegrown 3G mobile telecommunication standard has brought about a better life for many people.
"Let's look at the city of Xiamen. It is the world's first wireless city based on TD-SCDMA mobile technology. People enjoy a good communication network with a very low dropped call rate there," Deng said.
The successful example of Xiamen provided confidence and established a model for many other Chinese cities. China Mobile is stepping up the pace of building more wireless cities in China.
China Mobile also started developing the much faster and more advanced fourth generation (4G) TD-LTE technology in late 2007. The technology can easily reach a download speed of more than 100 megabytes a second, said the company.
In 2010, China Mobile entered the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes for the third consecutive year for its outstanding sustainability performance. It was the only company from the Chinese mainland to receive the title.
