Just got the Oct bill of China Mobile. Actually, I didn’t pay much attention to the details of a China Mobile bill. I believe the first thing (at least first 20 things) a new comer to Shanghai will do is to get a local mobile. Chances are, you get a China Mobile wireless service and will get the same bill as I get after 30 days.

If you have other plans from China Mobile service, like Shen Zhou Xing (the difference), or different subscriber (China Unicom), it will be much different.

The Structure

There are 5 categories in MY bill:

Monthly Fee

Function Fee

Communication Fee

Value Added Fee

Others

There are many smaller items under each of the categories.

Monthly Fee

If you are a Quanqiutong (GoTone) subscriber, which is billed customer like I am, you will see the monthly fee. For Shenzhouxing, you never get bill because you buy pre-paid card before you use the phone (details).

These fees are fixed. Even if you don’t use your mobile (power off for the whole month), you still need to pay for it.

The fee I have is:

Basic Monthly Fee – 50 RMB for everyone.

GPRS Fee – 20 RMB. There are many packages and 20 RMB seems to be the cheapest one.

Call and Save More Plan Fee – 10 RMB. China Mobile did a lot of promotions to secure its customers and offer cheaper price than its rival China Unicom. For example, for this plan (ZH), you pay 10 RMB first and you will save much more than 10 RMB if you call enough minutes…

All these are fixed, so China Mobile has a better way to forecast its revenue.

Function Fees

There are some functions that are not free. For example, the Caller ID charges 10 RMB per month. I always take it as the most basic function that I know who is calling on my mobile and this is the first time I notice this item. I am curious whether I can remove this item to save 10 RMB. :-) That will change the way I use mobile phone when every call is a mysterious call for me.

Communication Fee

This is the part I discussed in this article: How China Mobile Fee are Charged. This part is variable depending on how much you use the mobile phone. It may (and may not) includes the following items:

Local Calling Fee

Domestic Long Distance Fee

Domestic Roaming Fee

IP Phone Domestic Fee

SMS Fee

GPRS Communication Fee

MMS Fee

IVR Fee

Nothing new here, expect the IVR Fee. IVR (Interactive Voice Response), the technical term has a new meaning here. It means that by calling special phone number, you get voice services like music, or information and China Mobile charges you here.

Value Added Fee

This is where most China Internet companies monetize their huge traffic. Every item represent a SP (Service Provider) company for China Mobile. They can charge huge here. For example, one service can easily charge you 25 RMB per month and every month, you pay the 25 RMB with your mobile bill.

Other

This is just some misc items like they didn’t charge you the change (several cents) last month and you pay it this month – to keep the number you pay always an integer number.