The Triumphant Consumer? VoIP, "Little Smart," and Telecom Service Reform in China

Irene Wu
Additional contact information
Irene Wu: International Bureau Federal Communications Commission, Washington, D.C. and School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md.

Information Technologies and International Development, 2007, vol. 3, issue 4, 53-66

Abstract: Can innovations in communications technology dilute the power of China's authoritarian government? When Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP) and Little Smart (xiao lingtong) personal handyphone service first broke into China's market, they were illegal. However, consumers loved the services and demanded more. Using VOIP consumers can make cheap long distance calls. Little Smart introduced an old technology to China that makes mobile phone services more affordable to the masses. Eventually, the Ministry of Information Industry (MII), which initially had banned both, then legalized both under pressure from other parts of the government and from consumers. The planned economy is breaking down and the government is constructing piecemeal the foundation for a rules-based economy. (c) 2007 by The Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Date: 2007
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1162/itid.2007.3.4.53 link to full text (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:tpr:itintd:v:3:y:2007:i:4:p:53-66

Access Statistics for this article

Information Technologies and International Development is currently edited by Ernest J. Wilson III and Michael L. Best

More articles in Information Technologies and International Development from MIT Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by The MIT Press ().