Wow. Not only is that huge from an ownership, personal use and network effect standpoint, consider "China's Mobile Revolution", by Michael Sheridanin, from the UK's 8 June Sunday Times.
"The mobile phone came of age in China...when [the] earthquake
ripped through Sichuan province...victims used their phones to call for rescue, soldiers used civilian networks
to organize supplies, families used text messages to exchange news of
survival or loss and an increasingly angry group of citizens spread word of
protests against corruption and lax building standards. The national
conversation kept going thanks to a military-style logistics operation by
the rival phone companies.
So integrated is the mobile communications device into Chinese society that
the authorities have been puzzling for ages over the best way to channel
investment for the future...[but] the government may soon discover that regulating the telecoms providers is a
minor challenge compared with controlling the citizens who will ultimately
use their services to communicate with each other."
In a January post Emily Turrettini noted ABCnet.au's report on "the ability of the Chinese Government to spy on the country's 500 million mobile phone users." According to ABCnet, "Wang Jianzhou, head of China Mobile, stunned
delegates [to the World Economic Forum in Davos] by revealing that the company had unlimited access to the
personal data of its [300MM] customers and handed it over to Chinese security
officials when demanded. 'We know who you are, but also where you are,' said the CEO."
Thank goodness OUR government and telco operators would never compromise our privacy like that...oh heck.
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