China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has announced that 18 Chinese mobile service providers that had irregular operation activities have been ordered to suspend their operations.

According to MIIT, it recently completed screening and classification of mobile spam messages reported by mobile phone users through the 12321 Spam Message Reporting Center and organized the relevant communications administrations for an investigation on service providers that send fake promotions and fraudulent messages. The investigation has been finished and communications administrations in Heilongjiang, Jiangsu, Anhui, Jiangxi, Guangdong, Hainan, Hubei, Chongqing and Sichuan have issued punishment decisions to 18 service providers that had serious irregularities.

MIIT says that it will enhance its monitoring strength in the future and fight irregular activities that may harm the interests of Chinese mobile consumers. It requires that the relevant companies manage under the regulations and serve the customers with honesty. At the same time, it hopes that telecommunications users can cooperate with the monitoring departments and timely report the irregular activities of service providers to jointly create a cleaner telecommunications market environment.

In addition, to prevent the rebound of service provider problems, MIIT will complete and optimize a long-term mechanism for service provider management. It will check the operation of service providers at times and set up a strict punishment system for these who repeatedly implement irregular activities.