This article discusses the telecommunications industry in mainland China. For Hong Kong and Macau, see Communications in Hong Kong and Communications in Macau. The telecommunications industry in China is dominated by three state-run businesses: China Telecom, China Unicom and China Mobile. The three companies were formed by restructuring launched in May 2008, directed by the Ministry of Information Industry (MII), National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) and the Minister of Finance. Since then, all three companies gained nationwide fixed-line and cellular mobile telecom licenses in China. In 2019, all three telecoms were issued 5G national licenses. As a result of China’s entry to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, a new regulatory regime was established and foreign firms were allowed to access the market under restrictions. In 2012, Huawei Technologies overtook Sweden's Ericsson to become the world's largest telecom equipment vendor. In that same year, there were over 284.3 million fixed-line telephone subscribers and 1.01 billion mobile phone subscribers in China. As of 2021, there are over 989 million internet users and around 1.62 billion mobile phone subscriptions in China, and the telecom sector's monthly revenue was over 100 billion yuan ($15.52 billion). As of 2021, China is the only country known to work towards a single-stack IPv6 network. The country announced plans in 2017 to lead globally in IPV6 adoption by 2025, and achieve full nationwide rollout by 2030. Experts believe that such a plan to widely adopt IPv6 for the country’s internet infrastructure, can help China to increase its leadership in 5G and Internet of Things across multiple varying industries. Introduction The Chinese telecommunication sector’s growth rate was about 20% between 1997 and 2002. Chinese fixed-line and mobile operators have invested an average of $25 billion on network infrastructure in the last few years, which will be more than all western European carriers combined. As a result, with 1.3 billion citizens, China has the world’s largest fixed-line and mobile network in terms of both network capacity and number of subscribers. China’s accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) on December 11, 2001 resulted in the gradual opening of the telecom services market to foreign companies. Historical overview Before 1994, the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications (MTP) provided telecom services through its operational arm, China Telecom. Pressured by other ministries and dissenting customers, the Chinese government officially started the telecom industry reforms in 1994 by introducing a new