The Chinese government has launched antitrust investigations of two large state-owned telecommunications companies over alleged monopolistic activity in the market for broadband Internet services.
China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) is leading the probe of China Telecom Corp. Ltd. and China Unicom (Hong Kong) Ltd., who together control two-thirds of the Chinese broadband market. According to China’s official Xinhua news agency, the NDRC, a state agency whose duties vary from monitoring the performance of national economy to examining and approving major construction projects, suspects the companies have used their market dominance to charge consumers higher prices.
