When will the caller ID fee of 3-6 yuan per month be cancelled? The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology replied: within three to five years

Recently, some netizens asked when the caller ID fee can be cancelled in the People's Network leadership message board, "Now that we have entered the 5G era, the current package is basically a reduction in the caller ID fee, but there are still a small number of caller ID fees attached to the previous package, and I hope that the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology can reduce the caller ID fee of other packages under the arrangement of speeding up and reducing the fee." ”

In this regard, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology replied that since 2017, it has promoted basic telecommunications enterprises to give away or include caller ID services in new and on-sale packages, no additional fees, and gradually promote the migration of existing caller ID charging users to free tariffs. At present, caller ID charges only exist in some old package users who have not been transferred and have been discontinued, accounting for less than 2%.

(At present, most of the caller ID functions are gifted items in the package)

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said that the next step will continue to encourage market competition and strengthen policy guidance, etc., to promote basic telecommunications enterprises to further expand the scope of free users through the relocation of old packages, voice traffic resources to replace caller ID, etc., and gradually cancel caller ID fees within 3-5 years.

Caller ID, also known as caller ID display, refers to the service function of providing customers with and displaying the phone number of the caller when the mobile phone is called, and most mobile phone plans will open this function by default.

In the early stage of the development of the mobile phone industry, the caller ID does not charge a fee, but with the gradual expansion of the customer base, the cost burden of the operator increases, in 2000 the Ministry of Information Industry issued the "Notice on Adjusting the Tariff of Some Mobile Phones", stipulating that the upper limit of the charge for the caller ID function is 10 yuan per month, and each operating enterprise can determine its specific price according to the local situation, but it must be reported to the Ministry of Information Industry for the record before it can be implemented.

With the full rollout of the "speed up and fee reduction" policy in 2015, as well as the maturity of operators' technical facilities, the caller ID fee ranging from 3-6 yuan per month is not reasonable, and it has begun to cause many controversies, some people believe that "voice and traffic have been cabbage prices, why can't caller ID fees be cancelled."

At the two sessions of the National People's Congress in 2021, Zhou Shihong, member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and vice president of the Anhui Lawyers Association, proposed to cancel the mobile phone caller ID charge, he said, "More than ten years ago, the caller ID technology is immature, there is a certain cost, the operator charges have its rationality, in today's technical conditions, 'caller ID' is the standard function of communication equipment, for operators, signaling networks and switches are necessary, and the process of passing the caller ID almost does not occupy additional resources, it can be seen that operators provide' Caller ID' feature, the cost is almost negligible. ”

Zhou Shihong believes that in the case of almost no cost of caller ID function, it is obvious that charging caller ID fees lacks fairness, rationality and science. In addition, he also said that in recent years, there has been an increase in the number of online telecommunications fraud cases, "criminals use or tamper with caller ID, display wrong numbers, mislead the owner, and commit fraud, and operators are not responsible for this; however, there are court cases showing that victims sue operators for compensation for losses, which has won the support of the court." ”

Nandu reporter noted that in the above-mentioned people's network leadership message board, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology replied that in order to implement the spirit of the Third Plenary Session of the Eighteenth Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on comprehensively deepening reform and improving the mechanism of mainly determining prices by the market, in 2014, the Joint Development and Reform Commission of our Ministry issued the "Notice on the Implementation of Market-Adjusted Prices for Telecommunications Business Tariffs" (MINISTRY OFIT Unicom [2014] No. 182), which liberalized all telecommunications business tariffs, and currently implements market-adjusted prices for telecommunications business tariffs. It is formulated by telecommunications companies according to market conditions and user needs, and is no longer priced by the government.

According to the data, as of the end of last year, the total number of mobile users of the three major operators was about 1.646 billion households, calculated according to 2%, about 32.92 million users also need to pay the caller ID fee, calculated according to 5 yuan per person, about 165 million yuan of revenue contributed to the operator.

Written by: Nandu reporter Kong Xueshao Intern Cao Ziyi