Pro

Zeng Jianqiu

Professor at Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications

Double billing WeChat for signal channel usage is actually not what telecom providers are suggesting. Mobile applications may not be charged when they take up very little data flow in the signal channel. Charging fees to such applications when they take up too much flow is not double charging. Besides, the proposed fee is between Internet enterprises and telecom operators, and will not involve users. CA

Con

Wei Yingjie

Media commentator

Customers have already paid telecom service providers for the data volume needed to chat through WeChat. Why should they be charged a second time if telecom operators decide to collect fees based on the use of the application? Is this a disguised attempt to charge mobile users more? Everyone knows that fees for using data flows provided by telecom operators are comparatively high. Charging extra money for using WeChat is unfair. CA

Con

Cui Lin

Media commentator

There should be no extra fee for the use of WeChat. First, there is no legal basis for such a fee. If telecom providers charge for the use of the application, it would be double billing. Second, charging for WeChat will be a fatal blow to a very innovative product, particularly as there are new mobile applications emerging one after another, and the number of WeChat users would drastically decline if they were asked to pay for the service. Third, more and more mobile applications are available for free on the mobile Internet, and charging for WeChat would disrupt this trend. CA

Con

Liu Chiping

President of Tencent

There should be no extra fee charged for WeChat as users have already paid telecom operators for the data they use to chat through the application. The popularization of OTT applications has actually increased operators' revenues as more uses of the application means a higher volume of data flow on an operator's traffic network.

Besides, telecom service providers in other countries have not imposed extra fees on OTT application providers who have developed popular communication applications similar to WeChat, such as Kakao Talk in the Republic of Korea, Line in Japan and WhatsApp in the United States.

Because of the introduction of WeChat, more and more mobile phone users are using telecom providers' mobile bandwidth. When users are provided with an efficient application, they are willing to pay for the data transfers needed to run the application. In this sense, telecom operators could see the emergence of WeChat as a new source of revenue in their industrial chain. CA

Pro

Li Yi

Expert from MIIT

It is reasonable to charge WeChat for signal channel usage. The use of OTT applications like WeChat may block signal channels and cause the web to become unstable or even crash. To avoid blocking bandwidth, telecom operators have to invest personnel, hours and capital to upgrade their mobile traffic network. As a company that takes up a lot of data flow in the signal channels, Tencent should shoulder part of the upgrade costs. When calculating how much to charge Tencent, I suggest that the fees be based on how much data flow Tencent's service takes up in signal channels.

Whether or not users will be charged is Tencent's decision and has nothing to do with telecom operators. CA