China Netcom Corporation 中国網絡通信A075919CNC

China Netcom, full name China Netcom Group Corporation (Hong Kong) Limited (former stock codes: HKEX:0906, NYSE:CN), abbreviated CNC, was a telecommunication service provider in

People's Republic of China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...

. It was formed in August 1999 by the Chinese government to enable inward investments to build

high speed Internet Internet access is the ability of individuals and organizations to connect to the Internet using computer terminals, computers, and other devices; and to access services such as email and the World Wide Web. Internet access is sold by Internet ...

communications in the country.

Sectors

CNC was a provider of wire-line telecommunications services in

mainland China "Mainland China" is a geopolitical term defined as the territory governed by the China, People's Republic of China (including islands like Hainan or Chongming Island, Chongming), excluding dependent territories of the PRC, and other territorie ...

, mainly to areas in the north of

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...

. The firm was building a new

broadband In telecommunications, broadband is wide bandwidth data transmission which transports multiple signals at a wide range of frequencies and Internet traffic types, that enables messages to be sent simultaneously, used in fast internet connections. ...

Internet backbone The Internet backbone may be defined by the principal data routes between large, strategically interconnected computer networks and core routers of the Internet. These data routes are hosted by commercial, government, academic and other high- ...

across the country. It was widely seen as the number two

fixed-line A landline (land line, land-line, main line, home phone, fixed-line, and wireline) is a telephone connection that uses metal wires or optical fiber telephone line for transmission, as distinguished from a mobile cellular network, which uses ...

operator in mainland China after China Telecommunications Corporation, and operated a semi-mobile PAS or xiaolingtong system. Traditionally services were provided by the company to northern

Chinese province The provincial level administrative divisions () are the highest-level administrative divisions of China. There are 34 such divisions claimed by the People's Republic of China, classified as 23 provinces (), five autonomous regions, four muni ...

s and large cities such as

Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Chinese, Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four Direct-administered municipalities of China, direct-administered municipalities of the China, People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the ...

Guangdong Guangdong (, ), alternatively romanized as Canton or Kwangtung, is a coastal province in South China on the north shore of the South China Sea. The capital of the province is Guangzhou. With a population of 126.01 million (as of 2020 ...

Beijing } Beijing ( ; ; ), Chinese postal romanization, alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the Capital city, capital of the China, People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's Li ...

Tianjin Tianjin (; ; Mandarin: ), alternately romanized as Tientsin (), is a municipality and a coastal metropolis in Northern China on the shore of the Bohai Sea. It is one of the nine national central cities in Mainland China, with a total popu ...

Hebei Hebei or , (; alternately Hopeh) is a northern province of China. Hebei is China's sixth most populous province, with over 75 million people. Shijiazhuang is the capital city. The province is 96% Han Chinese, 3% Manchu, 0.8% Hui, and ...

Henan Henan (; or ; ; alternatively Honan) is a landlocked province of China, in the central part of the country. Henan is often referred to as Zhongyuan or Zhongzhou (), which literally means "central plain" or "midland", although the name is a ...

Shandong Shandong ( , ; ; Chinese postal romanization, alternately romanized as Shantung) is a coastal Provinces of China, province of the China, People's Republic of China and is part of the East China region. Shandong has played a major role in His ...

, and

Liaoning Liaoning () is a coastal province in Northeast China that is the smallest, southernmost, and most populous province in the region. With its capital at Shenyang, it is located on the northern shore of the Yellow Sea, and is the northernmo ...

; however, later they had a presence in most provinces. As well as offering

ADSL Asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL) is a type of digital subscriber line (DSL) technology, a data communications technology that enables faster data transmission over copper telephone lines than a conventional voiceband modem can provide. ...

internet services (not always available outside of north China), the company offered internet collocation services and was a leading provider of connectivity to China's so-called '

IP telephone Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), also called IP telephony, is a method and group of technologies for the delivery of voice communications and multimedia sessions over Internet Protocol (IP) networks, such as the Internet. The terms Internet ...

' shops, who offer discount rate, walk-in telephony services to the general public across China. Moreover, ChinaNetcom was the Beijing 2008 Olympic's Official telecommunications operator and partner and provided fixed-line telecommunications services for the Beijing Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games. It offered good fixed-lined telecommunication service and ensured its network was stable during the Good Luck Beijing Test Sport Event, the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games and the Beijing 2008 Paralympic Games.

History

The company started as a wholesaler for high-speed

data network A computer network is a set of computers sharing resources located on or provided by network nodes. The computers use common communication protocols over digital interconnections to communicate with each other. These interconnections are m ...

s in 1999, headquartered in

. It was backed by Jiang Mianheng,

Jiang Zemin Jiang Zemin (17 August 1926 – 30 November 2022) was a Chinese politician who served as general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from 1989 to 2002, as chairman of the Central Military Commission from 1989 to 2004, and as p ...

's son, and Liu Chuanzhi, chairman of ''Legend Computers'' (now

Lenovo Lenovo Group Limited, often shortened to Lenovo ( , ), is a Chinese multinational technology company specializing in designing, manufacturing, and marketing consumer electronics, personal computers, software, business solutions, and related se ...

). However, the business flopped partly because at the time China Telecommunications Corporation (China Telecom Group) held a monopoly over the

telecom market Telecom may refer to: * Telecommunications ** A telephone company (or ''telecommunications service provider'') ** The telecommunications industry * Telecom Animation Film, a Japanese studio See also * Telcom (disambiguation) * Telekom (disamb ...

. Netcom was on the verge of bankruptcy. Fortunately for Netcom, with the backing of Jiang's son, the

Chinese government The Government of the People's Republic of China () is an authoritarian political system in the People's Republic of China under the exclusive political leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). It consists of legislative, executive, m ...

broke up the China Telecom monopoly and granted Netcom a third of

China Telecom China Telecom Corp., Ltd. is a Chinese telecommunications company. It is one of the red chip listed companies of state-owned China Telecommunications Corporation. Its H shares have been traded on the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong since 15 Nove ...

's assets. Most of those assets are located in the northern provinces.

Merger with China Unicom

China Netcom was a

subsidiary A subsidiary, subsidiary company or daughter company is a company owned or controlled by another company, which is called the parent company or holding company. Two or more subsidiaries that either belong to the same parent company or having a ...

of China Network Communications Group Corporation. On June 2, 2008, Netcom announced its intention to merge with

China Unicom China United Network Communications Group Co., Ltd. () or China Unicom () (CUniq in short) is a Chinese state-owned telecommunications operator. Started as a wireless paging and GSM mobile operator, it currently provides a range of services i ...

, after the latter sold its

CDMA Code-division multiple access (CDMA) is a channel access method used by various radio communication technologies. CDMA is an example of multiple access, where several transmitters can send information simultaneously over a single communicatio ...

network to China Telecommunications Corporation. The combined company has all the assets of China Netcom, plus Unicom's nationwide

GSM The Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) is a standard developed by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) to describe the protocols for second-generation ( 2G) digital cellular networks used by mobile devices such ...

network with 125 million subscribers, as well as its smaller

dial-up Dial-up Internet access is a form of Internet access that uses the facilities of the public switched telephone network (PSTN) to establish a connection to an Internet service provider (ISP) by dialing a telephone number on a conventional telepho ...

and

ISP An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides services for accessing, using, or participating in the Internet. ISPs can be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, non-profit, or otherwise private ...

business. The merger was completed on 6 October 2008. China Netcom became a wholly owned

of China Unicom and the listings of its shares on the

Hong Kong Stock Exchange The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong (SEHK, also known as Hong Kong Stock Exchange) is a stock exchange based in Hong Kong. As of the end of 2020, it has 2,538 listed companies with a combined market capitalization of HK$47 trillion. It is rep ...

and its

American depositary receipt An American depositary receipt (ADR, and sometimes spelled ''depository'') is a negotiable security that represents securities of a foreign company and allows that company's shares to trade in the U.S. financial markets. Shares of many non-U.S ...

Shares on the

New York Stock Exchange The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE, nicknamed "The Big Board") is an American stock exchange in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It is by far the world's largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its liste ...

were withdrawn.

Complaints about spam

China Netcom and its domain cnc-noc.net have been noted in the West as a source of

e-mail spam Email spam, also referred to as junk email, spam mail, or simply spam, is unsolicited messages sent in bulk by email (spamming). The name comes from a Monty Python sketch in which the name of the canned pork product Spam is ubiquitous, unavoida ...

and host of spamvertised websites for products such as pills, porn and poker. In 2008, Norwegian researchers identified cnc-noc.net as "by far the world's worst ISP", and noted that the ISP did not respond to incident reports.Virus/worm incidents and intruders statistics
January - March 2008 Spamhaus lists the Unicom ISP as the 3rd worst ISP for spamming.

References

External links

China Netcom (official website)
{{authority control Mobile phone companies of China Government-owned companies of China Companies formerly listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange Companies formerly listed on the New York Stock Exchange Telecommunications companies of China Telecommunications companies established in 1999 Chinese companies disestablished in 2008 Former companies in the Hang Seng Index Internet service providers of China Email spammers Chinese companies established in 1999