Chinese Telecom Operators Interconnection Interoperability

From the beginning of this century, the interconnection between telecommunication networks plays important role in the telecommunication industry and it is more important nowadays. With the development of the global economy, we have stepped into the information society. The demand for communication increases greatly.In order to satisfy the requests for communication, more and more telecommunication operators appeared. To complete a telecommunication service, all of the networks and operators must cooperate with each other, a single telecommunication carrier can not do that. In order to provide better telecommunication services, the interconnection is inevitable. According to the network external property, the value of the network is direct proportion with the square of the amount of the users. So the more the users are the more value the network has. The telecommunication operators want to increase the value of their network by interconnection. So the interconnection is very important both to the carriers and the subscribers.From the technical aspect, the interconnection is not complex, but it comes down to the interest of the operators which want to interconnect. So how to make the interconnection fee is the bottleneck. The emphases of this thesis is how to make interconnection fee and make interconnection achieve. Viewing the environment of the telecommunication industry, the regulators pay more attention to introduce competition into the market. So the function of interconnection on the one hand is to introduce competition, on the other hand, the incumbent operator will not lose too much, if the interconnection fee can not compensate the capital, the incumbent operator will not have enthusiasm to invest on their network any more. So we must find a reasonable way to make the interconnection fee.The thesis starts with an illustration on the meaning of interconnection and role it plays from the regulation's perspective, which is followed by a brief introduction to the current interconnection situation in China and review and evaluation on regulation policy for interconnection.The thesis reviews interconnection and analyses common ways adopted by countries world-wide to make interconnection fee and compares the advantages and disadvantages of these methods.It examines two different ways of settlement, two-way charge and one-way charge, and it analyses the impact on China mobile operators made by different terms of settlement. Finally, suggestions on interconnection fee, interconnection cost allocation, simultaneous settlement between fixed and mobile interconnection are put forward to China telecom operators based on specific operating situations in China.