GOVERNMENT REGULATION OF THE TELECOMMUNICATION INDUSTRY During the Mao Zedong’s years (1950’s-1970’s) mainly politicians and military personnel were allowed to use telecommunications service in People’s Republic of China. Telephones were considered luxurious goods. In 1949 there were only 263,000 telephones with 310,000 telephone lines (Ding Lu, 2003). But at the end of the Cultural Revolution politicians realized that industrialization process in modern society could not be accomplished without reliable communications systems. And in 1975 the number of the telephone lines increased to 3.48 million (Ding Lu, 2003). In 1970’s the State Council enabled the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications (MPT) to operate post and telecommunications sectors. Under MPT local post and telecommunications administrations (PTE) were
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