"This is my business card." Lu Feng hurriedly handed over his business card.
General Manager Zhou glanced at General Manager Chen, feeling quite displeased, but there was nothing he could do. The other party had already been reassigned, and he couldn't control them. However, General Manager Li, who was in charge of telecommunications business, was standing not far away. He said, "General Manager Li, what are you doing standing there?"
Mr. Li coughed and walked over to sit down.
"Jiafeng Group is quite powerful. I hurriedly asked some friends who knew about it last night. I didn't expect that a private enterprise would have such an outstanding talent as President Lu," President Shen praised.
"You flatter me. I'm just doing small-scale work. Infrastructure still depends on state-owned enterprises like yours," Lu Feng said politely.
“It’s the same, we’re all building it together,” President Shen said in a particularly friendly tone.
Lu Feng had been trying to find a moment to chat with President Zhou, but the latter always had a sour face. On the contrary, President Shen was all smiles and full of praise, as if Lu Feng was closer to him than his own son.
A short while later, Huang Youwei pushed open the door and walked in, followed by several vice mayors in charge of municipal affairs, finance, and investment promotion.
"Please sit down, everyone. As the provincial capital, we must set a leading example. The reason I've called you all here today is to discuss mobile phones. During my research trips to developed countries, I've come to a profound understanding of the enormous changes mobile phones have brought to society." Huang Youwei looked at President Zhou and said, "I believe President Zhou is also aware that we have this opportunity to open up and discuss things frankly. Once we've reached an agreement, I'll speak to the provincial authorities."
"Let me start by saying this!" General Manager Zhou began, "We have a target. This year, the province needs to install ten million landline phones, which is our plan to ensure every household in the city has access to the internet. We don't have extra funds for this. If we don't need to add more signal base stations, we'd be happy with that. However, the electricity bills for the base stations, equipment maintenance, and staff salaries all cost money. We still need to pay the network access fee. I can offer a discounted price: a one-time network access fee of ten million!"
The telecom manager sat there silently, watching expectantly, wondering if he would get a share of the ten million.
Mr. Shen couldn't sit still any longer and hurriedly said, "We don't want the network access fee. We are very interested in the plan proposed by Mr. Lu. Helping companies develop is also one of our missions."
"President Shen, I'd like to ask, how many mobile signal base stations do you have throughout the province?" Lu Feng asked with great interest, unaware that he was about to be met with a bucket of cold water.
Mr. Shen smiled somewhat awkwardly and said, "There are still dozens!"
"Can all base stations in the province be used interchangeably?" Lu Feng asked again.
"How could that be?" President Zhou looked at Lu Feng and said irritably, "How could we let them use the things we built? And let me tell you, once you join their network, your mobile phone cannot make calls to their users. Do you think ten million yuan in network access fees is just something to be said casually? We have two thousand base stations throughout the province."
After a long conversation, Lu Feng finally understood the situation. It was practically an era of warlordism. Telephones were not on the same network and could not be used to make calls. Local calls had one price, calls outside the city had another, not to mention calls outside the province.
In other words, if Lu Feng cooperates with China Unicom and buys Jiafeng's phone, it's like buying a brick.
This is the source of his confidence in demanding a ten million yuan network access fee!
“President Zhou, this is what I’m thinking. It’s not that the Post and Telecommunications Group should pay for everything. For example, when building a base station, we can cover 30% of the cost, the local government can pay 15%, the province can support 15%, and you can pay the remaining 40%. You can also sell network access fees.” Lu Feng suggested, “We can sign a phased agreement, for example, building 2,000 base stations within five years, 400 per year. We will pay for it, with only one requirement: that each of Jiafeng’s mobile phones can be bound to three or five numbers, and calls between these numbers are free.”
“A single cell tower, including the steel and the base station, costs about 500,000 yuan. Four hundred would be 200 million yuan. We’re offering 80 million yuan. Where am I supposed to get that 80 million yuan? Once it’s built, what if your phones don’t sell? How low is the usage frequency of base stations these days? If you stop after a year, we’ll have a loss of over 18 million yuan. What am I supposed to say when the higher-ups ask?” General Manager Zhou said to Huang Youwei, “What if I say the city or the province told us to do it? Shouldn’t the leaders ask, ‘Who are you actually under?’”
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
