In Europe and America, VoIP services have become the mainstream of long- distance voice services. A foreseeable logic trend is that VoIP services will replace traditional long-distance phone. With the demonstration of such successful cases, VoIP services are bound to make major progress in China in the next few years. Though the relevant authorities have yet to specify policies for VoIP services, all major telecom operators and some virtual operators have all tried such services.

With the advancement of industries and technology, a new task that telecom operators must face is to how use new technology to provide users with better and cheaper services. VoIP services have started to be put on the agenda. However, VoIP services have played a notable role in diverting users from traditional long-distance telephone services. China Telecom alone has diverted 800 million to 2 billion Yuan away each year. Also, the influence will grow further. China Telecom and China Netcom are also piloting VoIP services in various localities in the hope that they can gain competitive advantages in their weak regions through such new voice communication means.

Due to lack of traditional telephone services, telecom operators in China have actively experimented with and piloted commercial use of VoIP services in certain regions. In May 2004, China Railcom started to quietly promote "broad phone" in some regions. Statistics show that "underground" VoIP call volume in China is growing at 30% annually. Because VoIP involves rather high initial expenses (including a VoIP phone set, initial installation fee and rental), ordinary families still cannot accept it. Consequently, current users are basically enterprise users or IP phone bars.

Currently, VoIP operators in various localities are small companies, while telecom operators only provide communication network support back stage. There are now over 1,000 small companies that adopt such VoIP services of "virtual operations".

In 2005, the Ministry of Information Industry stipulated that with the exception of China Telecom and China Netcom, which can conduct commercial experiments with IP phone of the PC-Phone mode in some regions, no other units or individuals can engage in the service. Meanwhile, 4 experimental regions, namely Shenzhen in Guangdong Province, Shangrao in Jiangxi Province, Changchun in Jilin Province and Tai'an in Shangdong Province were specified.

In September 2005, telecom operators cancelled the Internet access authorization for Shenzhen Telecom's broadband users who used SkypeOut. Subsequently, China Telecom and China Netcom started a large-scale ban on VoIP. Currently, similar ban on VoIP successively followed in Guangdong, Guangxi, Sichuan and Jiangsu. Stopping SKYPE's early free network phone services was a resolute measure taken to guarantee telecom operators' dominant position in the voice services field.