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. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

. It was formed in August 1999 by the Chinese government to enable inward investments to build high speed Internet communications in the country.

Sectors

CNC was a provider of wire-line telecommunications services in

mainland China "Mainland China", also referred to as "the Chinese mainland", is a Geopolitics, geopolitical term defined as the territory under direct administration of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in the aftermath of the Chinese Civil War. In addit ...

, mainly to areas in the north of

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

. The firm was building a new

broadband In telecommunications, broadband or high speed is the wide-bandwidth (signal processing), bandwidth data transmission that exploits signals at a wide spread of frequencies or several different simultaneous frequencies, and is used in fast Inter ...

Internet backbone The Internet backbone is 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-capacity network ...

across the country. It was widely seen as the number two fixed-line 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 provinces and large cities such as

Shanghai Shanghai, Shanghainese: , Standard Chinese pronunciation: is a direct-administered municipality and the most populous urban area in China. The city is located on the Chinese shoreline on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the ...

Guangdong ) means "wide" or "vast", and has been associated with the region since the creation of Guang Prefecture in AD 226. The name "''Guang''" ultimately came from Guangxin ( zh, labels=no, first=t, t= , s=广信), an outpost established in Han dynasty ...

Beijing Beijing, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's List of national capitals by population, most populous national capital city as well as ...

Tianjin Tianjin is a direct-administered municipality in North China, northern China on the shore of the Bohai Sea. It is one of the National Central City, nine national central cities, with a total population of 13,866,009 inhabitants at the time of the ...

Hebei Hebei is a Provinces of China, province in North China. It is China's List of Chinese administrative divisions by population, sixth-most populous province, with a population of over 75 million people. Shijiazhuang is the capital city. It bor ...

Henan Henan; alternatively Honan is a province in Central China. Henan is home to many heritage sites, including Yinxu, the ruins of the final capital of the Shang dynasty () and the Shaolin Temple. Four of the historical capitals of China, Lu ...

Shandong Shandong is a coastal Provinces of China, province in East China. Shandong has played a major role in Chinese history since the beginning of Chinese civilization along the lower reaches of the Yellow River. It has served as a pivotal cultural ...

, and

Liaoning ) , image_skyline = , image_alt = , image_caption = Clockwise: Mukden Palace in Shenyang, Xinghai Square in Dalian, Dalian coast, Yalu River at Dandong , image_map = Liaoning in China (+all claims hatched).svg , ...

; 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 wire, copper telephone lines than a conventional voiceband modem ...

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' 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 Data ( , ) are a collection of discrete or continuous values that convey information, describing the quantity, quality, fact, statistics, other basic units of meaning, or simply sequences of symbols that may be further interpreted for ...

s in 1999, headquartered in

. It was backed by

Jiang Mianheng Jiang Mianheng (; born 8 April 1951) is a Chinese scholar, entrepreneur, and political figure. He has served as Vice President of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and President of ShanghaiTech University. His father is Jiang Zemin, General Secre ...

Jiang Zemin Jiang Zemin (17 August 1926 – 30 November 2022) was a Chinese politician who served as General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from 1989 to 2002, as Chairman of the Central Mil ...

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

Lenovo Lenovo Group Limited, trading as Lenovo ( , zh, c=联想, p=Liánxiǎng), is a Chinese multinational technology company specializing in designing, manufacturing, and marketing consumer electronics, personal computers, software, servers, conv ...

). However, the business flopped partly because at the time China Telecommunications Corporation (China Telecom Group) held a monopoly over the telecom market. 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 based on a system of people's congress within the parameters of a Unitary state, unitary communist state, in which the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) enacts its policies through people's ...

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

China Telecom China Telecom Corporation Limited (CT) is a Chinese telecommunications company. It is one of the publicly traded red chip companies of the state-owned China Telecommunications Corporation. The company's H shares have been traded on the Sto ...

'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 (law), company completely or partially owned or controlled by another company, called the parent company or holding company, which has legal and financial control over the subsidia ...

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

China Unicom China United Network Communications Group (China Unicom) is a Chinese state-owned telecommunications operator. Originally founded (on January 6 2009) as a wireless paging and GSM mobile operator, it currently provides a range of services inclu ...

, 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 family of standards to describe the protocols for second-generation (2G) digital cellular networks, as used by mobile devices such as mobile phones and Mobile broadband modem, mobile broadba ...

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 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. It is one of the largest stock exchanges in Asia and the List of major stock exchanges, 9th largest globally by market ...

and its American depositary receipt 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, Manhattan, Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It is the List of stock exchanges, largest stock excha ...

were withdrawn.

Complaints about spam

China Netcom and its domain cnc-noc.net have been noted in

the West West is a cardinal direction or compass point. West or The West may also refer to: Geography and locations Global context * The Western world * Western culture and Western civilization in general * The Western Bloc, countries allied with NAT ...

as a source of

e-mail spam Email spam, also referred to as junk email, spam mail, or simply spam, refers to unsolicited messages sent in bulk via email. The term originates from a Monty Python sketch, where the name of a canned meat product, "Spam," is used repetitively, m ...

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