The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of China has published a report on the telecom service quality in China for the third quarter of 2011, stating that 17,099 telecom service complaints were received during the reporting period, an increase of 13.8% compared with the previous quarter.

By complaint rate of users, China Unicom was the highest with 24.5 of each million users complaining about its services, a quarter-over-quarter increase of 29.8%. China Mobile was the lowest with 10 of each million users complaining about its services. At the same time, the complaint rate of China Telecom decreased by 18.2% compared with the previous quarter and 12.4 of each million users complained about its services.

By service sectors, China Unicom received the most complaints about user service and network quality, reporting 2,635 and 2,074 cases, respectively. China Mobile received the most complaints about fee disputes, which were mentioned in 3,042 cases.

The statistics also revealed that users' complaints about user service and fee disputes both saw declines. However, complaints about network quality increased by 5.1% over the previous quarter. MIIT said it was mainly because the natural disasters like heavy rainfall affected the broadband network quality, wireless network coverage and wireless network quality.

In addition, MIIT implemented sample tests on 360 services provided by the three major telecom operators and 167 value-added services providers. According to the test results, services of some enterprises still had defects, including inconsistency between charges and actual services and slow connection of mobile voice services.