Why should traffic be distinguished between local and national？ After reading this, I completely understand.

Traffic is undoubtedly the most tangled thing for everyone to use mobile phones. No one can do without it, but it costs a lot of money every month, especially the various settings of operators are a headache.

For example, traffic can be divided into local traffic and national traffic. The former is cheap but often inexhaustible, while the latter is rarely enough but expensive. Some people even deduct the national traffic first and then the local traffic.

In particular, voice roaming charges will be cancelled soon, so why should traffic roam? How good the national price is.

The explanations given by the three major operators are similar. They all say that the network resources in different places are unbalanced and the traffic consumption is different. In order to avoid confusion, only local traffic and national general traffic can be distinguished.

In this regard, senior industry analyst @ Communication Laoliu also made an in-depth interpretation. Let’s take a brief look.

First, the needs of operators according to local conditions

When 3G/4G was first introduced, the operator’s standard packages were actually unified nationwide, all of which were national packages, and the prices were the same, but it was not "fair". For example, the economy of Beishangguang was good and the income was high, and the package was acceptable, but the underdeveloped areas in the central and western regions could not.

In addition, operators are managed at different levels. The group head office is divided into branches in various provinces (municipalities/autonomous regions), and then they go to cities to set up their own products and policies according to the specific conditions of each place, especially the preferential services with local characteristics.

As a result, there are 3G and 4G national packages (the traffic is universal), provincial packages (the preferential traffic can only be used in the province) and local packages (the preferential traffic can only be used in the city).

Second, prevent mobile phone cards from running around the country.

After the cancellation of the voice roaming fee, there is no difference between users answering calls anywhere in China and local ones, but at the operator level, mobile phone numbers are still managed in different regions.

Doing so can effectively standardize the business development of local operators and facilitate the statistics of local performance, which is determined by the management system of operators.

Under such a system, mobile phone cards from all over the country are not allowed to wander around the country, otherwise it will lead to management confusion, and the existence of long-distance and roaming is also to avoid cross-card.

If the roaming of traffic is also cancelled and turned into national traffic, then the cards in areas with low tariffs will go to places with high tariffs, which will lead to imbalance and infighting in the business development of local operators, which is also not conducive to the improvement of service level.

So, will traffic "roaming" be cancelled in the future?

The answer is yes, but it is estimated that it will take another two or three years.

In 2014-2016, the average traffic price of each operator decreased by more than 60%. In the future, with the further price reduction of national packages and traffic packages, it can meet the needs of users in most regions. When there is basically no difference between local and national traffic, there will naturally be no more traffic roaming.