China Unicom and China Post formally signed an agreement yesterday on the joint development of a videophone service called "Bao Shi Tong".

The two sides will work together to operate the videophone service in all postal affiliates and post offices across China to enable people to communicate with their friends and relatives living far away.

China Post will sell "Bao Shi Tong" telephone cards at each of its branches and allow promotion of the service via postal channels and concerned affiliates.

The "Bao Shi Tong" broadband video communications consists of enterprise video conference service, videobased TV service and "Zai Xian Tong" (online IP service).

The fee for domestic long distance call with this service is CNY0.2/minute and international calls including those to Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan is only CNY0.8/minute, which is even cheaper than ordinary IP fees.