"Sure, via mobile phone, I can contact my business, my wife or my mum whenever I need to, but I think the fees are too high," said Wang Zhenhua, a Shanghai restaurateur.

Two-way charges mean the user has to pay for every call, no matter whether it's outgoing or incoming - including harassment or prank calls.

"It is unfair for me to have to pay for a call that comes from someone else. Every month when bill comes, my heart bleeds," said Zhu Chengyi. He usually has to pay up to 800 yuan ($97) a month for calls.

Old system dies hard

For years people have speculated the system will be changed, but a timeframe has remained elusive.

A senior Chinese official who asked to remain anonymous said central authorities have stamped approval on the abolition of two-way charges in favour of a new system where callers only pay for their own calls.

The official was quoted by Chengdu Business News, a newspaper based in Southwest China's Sichuan Province, as saying that the revised policy is expected to be effective soon but he refused to give concrete details.

"We don't know when it will happen," said Yuan Sutai, a spokesman for the Ministry of Information Industry.

Mobile phone users and sellers, meanwhile, long for the change.

"One-way charges will be good news for our sales as more people will be likely to buy cell phones," said Stefan Bahrenburg, manager of the new generation of mobile networks for Siemens' China operations.

His words were echoed by David Almstrom, vice-president of Ericsson's operations in China. "Most nations don't double charge consumers, and if Chinese consumers can be freed of the burden, the market will explode," he said.

However, an official from Shanghai Mobile, a leading mobile service provider, said one-way charges are unlikely to happen soon.

"It is unlikely the State will implement one-way charges in the next or two years because of technical problems and profit distribution between mobile phone companies and fixed line and paging firms," he said.

Impact of one-way charges

The government is thought to be holding off fear that if one-way charges are introduced, the fixed line phone and paging industries will fall. The two businesses, especially the paging sector, have been in a tailspin as the mobile market booms.

"If the one-way charge comes, I will definitely retire my BP and buy a mobile phone. After all, it does not make economic sense to use BP and have a handset," said Zhang Hong, a 20-something staff member of a local PR firm.

Some experts say the paging industry is not on its way out but they note that the sector needs to improve its service and develop new features to hold on to customers.

Wang Gang, an engineer of Eastcom, a Hangzhou-based telecom player, in charge of paging business, said beepers can be upgraded to become a two-way communication device and that on-line features such as stock checks, email exchanges and information and on-line games and videos can be developed.

"Beeper users will be easy prey for the mobile phone business if pagers are not updated. Interactive features could give them a niche in a tough market," he said. Eastcom is now doing research and develop-ment into two-way communi-cation tech-nology, but he said the products are hard to market right now as their prices are too high to lure customers.

Phone market fiercer

Some customers say even with new charges, mobile phones will stay expensive.

Zhang Jinhua, a local reporter, said: "I've heard that according to the new formula, a call will be charged at 0.6 yuan ($0.07) a minute for a local call, 0.2 yuan ($0.02) more than an original single call. The price is still high," he said.

Zhang Ming, a reporter for a local computer magazine, said mobile phones will never replace beepers and fixed line market because of their own handicaps.

"Radiation is the top concern. It is not good to use a mobile phone frequently, it will have a bad effect on your brain," he said.

He added: "Many mobile phone users carry a beeper. They close their mobile phone and activate their BP. When they get message by BP, they will respond by cell phone. This is the most cost-effective way of using these technologies," Zhang said.