As required by the Ministry of Information Industry, from December 1, 2007, a new service provider code prefixed with 106 will be formally initiated to replace the current four-digit number from each telecom service provider in China.

With the launch of the new code, the service provider codes of China Mobile, China Unicom, China Telecom and China Netcom will be unified so that service providers can freely choose a cooperator among the four Chinese telecom service providers.

Among all the telecom service providers, Guangdong Unicom is an early bird in changing its service code. The company will, from November 1 to November 30, change the SMS service code in batches and fully initiate the use of SMS access number prefixed with 106. According to a representative from Guangdong Unicom, the company's old access number is currently accepted, but it won't be used after March 1, 2008.

MII had planned to launch the new code on January 1, 2006, but because of the hesitation of some telecom operators and SPs, this plan had to be postponed again and again.