October 11, 2005

Guangzhou Telecom, a subsidiary of China Telecom in south China's Guangdong province, has launched a B2B (business-to-business) portal (www.gz168.com) to begin its online business brand 'BizNavigator'.

"Once the website succeeds, China Telecom will expand the online business across all branches in China," a source close to the situation told Interfax.

The portal website provides an online business platform for small and middle enterprises (SMEs). It also bundled all China Telecom services with the online business, including cutting charges for ADSL and Xiaolingtong (PHS) short message services for the business clients of the website.

In August, China Telecom worked with Cisco, Microsoft, HP, Lenovo, ZTE and Ufida to form a 'SMEs Informatization Alliance', and launched 'BizNavigator'.

China Telecom, the largest fixed-line telecom operator in China, has met with erosion of its voice businesses due to emerging VoIP applications and 3G technologies.

The carrier has decided a strategic transformation from a traditional telecom operator to an information provider, and its major source of revenue is to change from call services to value-added services.

In September, China Telecom launched job search services on its broadband portal ChinaVnet.com in Shandong province. Meanwhile, the company was in talks to develop a 3G mobile portal.

Source: Interfax.com