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Outrage Online Over Rumored Threat to Beloved App
China’s state-run telecom companies are no strangers to angry customers, who complain loudly and often about poor service or hidden charges. But the companies experienced a new level of consumer rage over the weekend as rumors emerged that they’re working on a plan to charge for the use of the country’s most popular free mobile application, which they did not develop and do not operate.
中国国有电信运营商已经不是第一次惹怒客户了。消费者常常会大声控诉其服务差或隐性收费。不过在上周末，这些运营商感受到了消费者的又一股冲天怒气，原因是有传言称，运营商在制定计划，准备对中国一款人气极旺的免费移动应用软件的使用收费。该软件不是这些运营商开发和运营的。
The application in question is WeChat, a messaging and social media program created by China’s largest listed Internet company Tencent. Since its introduction two years ago, the app, which allows users to send voice and text messages and also share photos with groups of contacts, has accrued more than 300 million users.
上述软件其实就是微信(WeChat)，中国最大的上市互联网公司腾讯(Tencent)创建的可传送消息的社交媒体平台。自从两年前发布以来，微信用户目前已超三亿。用户可利用这款软件发送语音和文本信息，还可建群并与之互享图片。
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In what would amount to both a tribute and a threat to WeChat’s success, Chinese media have reported in recent weeks that China’s three telecom service providers have been meeting with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology to work out a way to charge for the service. Those rumors took on new weight over the weekend when Miao Wei, the head of MIIT, was quoted by business magazine Caixin as saying that it was possible that a small charge would be added (in Chinese).
中文媒体近几周报道称，中国三大电信服务提供商一直在与中国工业和信息化部(简称工信部)协商，欲找到有关微信收费的办法。这既是对微信获得成功的褒奖，也是对它的威胁。这些谣言在上周末愈传愈烈，当时商业杂志《财新》援引工信部部长苗圩的话说，有可能对微信进行小幅收费。
MIIT declined to comment when contacted by China Real Time on Monday and has so far made no mention of any potential charges for WeChat on its website.
《华尔街日报》“中国实时报”栏目记者周一联系了工信部。该部拒绝置评，到目前为止也没有在官网上提到任何有关微信可能收费的事。
The remark nevertheless helped push Tencent’s shares down 1.5% on Monday and drew almost universal outrage from users on China’s other popular social media service, Sina Corp.’s Weibo.
尽管如此，苗圩的话仍在一定程度上推动腾讯股票周一下跌了1.5%，并且也在中国另一个人气社交媒体平台、新浪公司(Sina Corp.)旗下的微博上引发众怒。
“Charging for WeChat would be the most serious battle in the history of the Chinese Internet,” wrote popular blogger Fang Xingdong in a post forwarded more than 1,000 times. “It not only threatens WeChat, it also threatens other Internet applications and topples the Internet’s fundamental principles and model,” he added.
拥有众多粉丝的微博用户方兴东写道：微信收费将是中国互联网有史以来最严峻的一场战争!这不仅危及微信，也将危及其他互联网应用，颠覆互联网基本规则和基本模式!这条微博被转发了1,000多次。
Many others shared his concerns, lashing out at the Chinese telecom companies and bemoaning the dampening effect such a move might have on an application that is currently on the most popular means by which tech-savvy Chinese communicate over their phones.
还有很多网友也有类似担心。他们纷纷抨击中国电信运营商，抱怨此举可能会给微信带来负面影响。微信目前是那些懂技术的中国消费者通过手机彼此交流的最受欢迎的方式。
“Telecom carriers, could you be more thuggish? How much blood do you want to squeeze from the common people,” wrote another user under the handle Gerald Xiao Lei.
另外一位网名叫“Gerald小磊”的微博用户写道：运营商你们还能更流氓点吗?是想榨干多少劳动人民的血啊!!?
But beneath the online bitterness lies a very real challenge for China’s telecom operators. As more and more Chinese switch to smartphones, applications like WeChat have outcompeted the services offered by the telecoms, eating away at revenue generated by their core voice and text message services. Worsening the situation, the WeChat function that allows users to locate others close to them puts pressure on the part of the network that locates mobile users, according to a recent interview with a China Mobile official (in Chinese).
然而在网民抱怨的背后，存在着对中国电信运营商的真实挑战。随着越来越多的消费者开始用智能手机，微信等应用软件在与运营商服务的竞争中占据上风，侵蚀了运营商语音和短信等核心业务带来的收入。中国移动研究院院长近日接受记者采访时表示，微信有找到附近用户的功能，这会给定位手机用户的通讯网络带来压力，从而令情况变得更糟。
Although telecom providers do not traditionally charge for the “signaling” services, heavy use of apps like WeChat can crash a network, according to the official, who pointed out how a flood of signaling crashed NTT DoCoMo’s Tokyo network for several hours early last year.
这位官员说，尽管电信运营商通常对“发送信号”服务不收费，但大量使用微信等移动应用可能会造成网络瘫痪。这位官员指出，去年初大量信号的发送导致NTT移动通讯(NTT DoCoMo)的东京网络中断了数小时。
Speaking at a conference over the weekend, Tencent’s Chief Executive Pony Ma quibbled with how much pressure the application put on networks, in part arguing that the large amount of data use attributed to WeChat was in part due to links to external audio and video content, according to Chinese media.
据中国媒体报道，腾讯首席执行长马化腾周末在一个大会上发言时含糊其辞地谈到了微信给网络带来的巨大压力，他称，与微信有关的庞大数据流量一定程度上是因为链接有外部音频和视频内容。
Analysts warn that charging users specifically for WeChat would probably kill off the app, widely considered one of the most innovative products designed by a Chinese Internet firm and one of the few with some hope of finding success overseas. Backing up that claim was an unscientific poll by Southern Metropolitan Daily on Weibo on Monday, in which 86% of more than 2,000 respondents said they would stop using WeChat if they were forced to pay for it.
分析人士警告说，特别针对微信向用户收费，这样做可能会扼杀这一移动应用。微信被普遍认为是中国互联网公司设计的最具创意的产品之一，也是他们为数不多几个有望在海外获得成功的产品之一。支持这一观点的是《南方都市报》(Southern Metropolitan Daily)周一在新浪微博上做的非正式民调。在2,000多名受访者中，有86%的人说如果微信要交费，他们将不再使用微信。
In turn users would likely gravitate to a similar free product, leaving the telecoms right where they began.
用户可能会改用一种与微信类似的免费产品，电信巨头们又会回到原点。
Given the power of the telecoms, Tencent nonetheless will likely have to make some sort of offering, according to Mark Natkin, managing director of Marbridge Consulting, a Beijing-based tech research firm.
科技研究公司北京迈博瑞咨询有限公司(Marbridge Consulting)的董事总经理纳特金(Mark Natkin)说，鉴于电信巨头们的影响，腾讯将可能不得不给些好处。
“One way or another [Tencent] has to appease the operators, and if they can’t make them feel happy about how much they’re losing on the cost to build out the network, then it’s an absolute that operators will start to throw up roadblocks,” Mr. Natkin said, but he added that MIIT’s statement seemed to indicate it would try to find a reasonable solution to the problem.
纳特金说，不管怎样，腾讯必须安抚一下运营商，运营商构建网络的成本很高，而免费的微信令他们损失很大，如果腾讯无法使运营商感到满意，那么运营商毫无疑问会开始设置障碍。但他也说，工业和信息化部的声明似乎暗示它将努力找到一个合理的解决方法。
“I don’t imagine that this will come to a standstill in which operators are asking something impossible or simply blocking WeChat traffic, but it also sounds like [the operators] are not going to simply stand by and wait to get offered a piece of pie,” he said.
他说，我认为，此事不会陷入僵局，运营商不会要求不可能的东西或是干脆阻止微信的流量，但运营商似乎也不太可能只是坐等分一杯羹。
Meanwhile Tencent has signaled that it has no plans to charge users for the service, a potential indication that a direct transaction between the Internet companies and the carriers that does not affect users would be possible.
与此同时，腾讯表示，它没有向微信用户收费的计划，这可能暗示互联网公司与运营商之间可能达成不影响用户的直接交易。
“We have no plan to charge individual users of Weixin/WeChat. We believe Tencent and telecom carriers can develop collaborative and mutually beneficial relationships,” the company said in a statement. “We generate data traffic subscriptions for telecom carriers and are expanding data plan user base for them through the provision of mobile value-added services to the users. We will continue to collaborate with telecom carriers to achieve win-win situation like what we did in the 2G era.”
腾讯在一份声明中说，我们没有向微信个人用户收费的计划。我们认为腾讯和电信运营商能够建立合作与互惠的关系。我们为电信运营商带来数据流量付费用户，并通过向用户提供移动增值服务为运营商扩大数据套餐用户数量。我们将继续与电信运营商合作，实现像2G时代一样的双赢局面。 |
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发表于 2016-7-11 09:57:22