Whether or not Chinese over-the-top (OTT) content service WeChat, in Chinese, Weixin, should start charging users for its services has recently been the subject of heated debate.

WeChat, a mobile chatting application introduced by Chinese IT giant Tencent Holdings in 2010, has attracted more than 300 million domestic users and over 40 million users in foreign countries in the last two years.

However, the emergence of such OTT applications, which are more efficient and inexpensive, is providing new competition for China's current telecom giants, China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom, whose mainstay businesses are offering text message and phone services.

Statistics published by China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) show that the volume of text messages sent by mobile phone users in January and February of 2013, when text messaging numbers usually explode because of the Spring Festival, fell by 10.6 percent year on year due to the popularization of free OTT applications. A recent survey conducted by the Data Center of China Internet also confirms this trend. In 2012, text messaging and phone calls dropped by 20 percent and 5 percent, respectively.

Public debate was stirred up after Miao Wei, Minister of the MIIT, was reported to have said WeChat might cease to be a free service. Telecom operators later remarked that Tencent, rather than WeChat users, should pay fees for the application.

While debating who should foot the bill for WeChat, the public has also begun discussing whether companies are justified in charging for the service in the place. Supporters say heavy use of the OTT applications such as WeChat has increased the load on web service providers and so using such applications should cost money. However, others maintain that WeChat users have already paid telecom operators for the data volume that is used by chatting with the application.

Pro

Wang Hui

Consultant with the China Mobile Research Institute

In the mobile Internet age, many social networking and communication tools that use data transfer services provided by telecom operators are now available for mobile phones. The growth of these mobile apps has outstripped that of traditional services offered by telecom operators, and these apps providers make a profit by taking advantage of telecom enterprises' core businesses (phone calls and text messaging), which has threatened the stability of the mobile traffic networks. In essence, telecom operators have been forced to consider charging for WeChat after their data networks have been overly abused. 

Telecom operators are having great pressure in the face of increased mobile Internet use. Over the past decades, they invested heavily to establish a complete mobile traffic network for mobile phone users. However, the emergence of OTT applications like WeChat are now enjoying the benefits of these efforts but are not compensating telecom operators for the original investment.

Not charging for WeChat may be regarded as submitting to Tencent's challenging of telecom operators. Surrendering like this will allow the use of Tencent to completely outstrip that of traditional telecom services, which will cause various instant messenger companies to unscrupulously cash in by using telecom operators' web resources. Then all kinds of applications will operate via the mobile web.

Telecom operators will also lose absolute control over the mobile traffic network. If this happens, Internet companies will do whatever they like on the network that telecom operators built, which will result in chaos. Telecom operators would also be unable to properly supervise and maintain the network, and the entire industry would suffer. In that scenario, mobile phone users will be the ultimate losers. CA

Con

Du Zide

Expert with the China Computer Federation

If WeChat is charged, all value-added services on the mobile Internet may be forced to pay extra fees. It is unreasonable for the three state-owned telecom operators, China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom, to monopolize the establishment of Internet infrastructure, and then impose extra fees on those who use it. Over the years, the three telecom service providers have earned enormous profits from their monopoly. They were less adventurous in their innovations and were surpassed by Tencent, which made an original technological invention when it rolled out WeChat. As WeChat came to be widely accepted, telecom operators failed to improve their own technologies and services, and instead are trying to use their monopolies to restrict and prevent the popularization of new products. I don't think this is a good business approach. CA