China Regulates The Global Gateway

China's Ministry of Information Industry (MII) has recently promulgated the Administration of the Construction of International Communications Facilities Provisions (the Communications Facilities Provisions), which entered into effect on August 1 2002. The new regulations have been issued pursuant to the PRC Telecommunications Regulations  (中华人民共和国电信条例) (the Telecom Regulations), and should also be read in conjunction with the recently promulgated Administration of International Communications Gateway Exchanges Procedures (the Gateway Procedures), which are scheduled to take effect from October 1 2002.

What is a Gateway?

A telecommunications (telecom) gateway is a switching network, which connects domestic telecom networks with foreign networks ensuring the smooth flow of international traffic. For example, an outgoing call could originate on any local telephone exchange in China operated by the fixed line providers, such as China Telecom or China Netcom Group. Alternatively, the call may originate from the network of the cellular providers, China Mobile or China Unicom. The outgoing call is transmitted through a domestic network before reaching a gateway where the call would be transmitted to the specific international destination. A telecom gateway can carry both voice and data traffic, while internet gateways are used for transmitting data.