Wireless Turns Risky in China

(sub. req.): Sohu.com gained success by offering Internet services to China’s huge base of mobile-phone users, but a crackdown in the industry could signal that the glory days of easy wireless revenue in China are over.
During the past month, state-controlled China Mobile has slapped more than 20 companies, including Sohu.com, with sanctions and fines, and more cases are expected. There is also concern that China Mobile — which also bills consumers for the wireless jokes and cartoons sold by third parties, since most Chinese don’t have credit cards — could use its influence to alter the basic revenue-sharing arrangement that made offering mobile services in China so lucrative in the first place.

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