Chinese TV, Internet, and Telecom to Converge

In an attempt to standardize products, China is going to converge their TV, Internet and Telecom by the year 2015. They are also reducing the cable systems down to one, to have a unified product since there were many different companies. Each Province will then have it's own network.

China's TV subscribers reached 187 million users last year and 88 million of those are digital subscribers. This planned convergence will digitize all cable services. The SARFT (State Administration of Radio and Film and Television) report also states, "A digitalized cable TV network enables a much larger amount of content transmission and, together with other technologies, will make it possible for TV broadcasters, telecom carriers, and Internet companies to enter each other's fields and provide services."

This sounds like the standard ideal for convergence--that it will lead to competition. Convergence of these three sectors is very much the international norm, because in theory it will create competition and as the report states allow cross sector interaction. Based on the American model there is question whether or not this really does create more competition, and with only having one standard cable company, and eliminating the current 3,000 cable providers, appears to be the creation of a major state run monopoly. This sounds like a very contradictory plan.

Official China Daily Article