There was an increasing number of complaints from consumers about the Chinese telecommunications industry in the third quarter, mainly about broadband and mobile Internet services, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the industry regulator, said on Monday.

These were due, in part, to industry reorganization, which began in June. Under the reorganization, China Mobile acquired China Tietong, China Unicom merged with China Netcom and China Telecom acquired China Unicom's CDMA business.

Service levels are expected to improve when the industry revamp is finished early next year, industry insiders said.

There was a total of 130 kinds of irregular activities and 10,334 complaints during the quarter. These involved Chinese telecom value-added service providers, who were punished by local telecom administrations.

Among them, 12 inter-provincial telecom value-added companies were dealt with by telecom administrations in at least three or more provinces and municipalities, the ministry said.

The major problems included cheating, subscription irregularities and services not as promised.

Complaints about the top Chinese carriers, China Mobile, China Telecom, China Unicom and China Netcom, ranged from 11 to 36 percent higher in the third quarter than the previous quarter, the ministry said.

The four companies account for more than 95 percent of China's market share.

With the structure of the industry changing rapidly and the popularity of many new services, such as mobile TV and IPTV, it was inevitable problems would arise, industry insiders said.

(Shanghai Daily November 25, 2008)