CHINA'S telecommunications fees and consumer complaints decreased in the first eight months of this year, as the industry became more competitive and transparent, the industry regulator said today.

From January to August, China's telecommunications fees dropped 11.4 percent year-on-year on the average. The regulator had received about 19,000 complaints from consumers, down 1.6 percent from a year ago, according to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

During the period, three carriers, including China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom closed connections to about 3,000 unregistered Websites. They also shut down or blocked 32,600 Websites with illegal or pornographic contents, the ministry said.

The clampdown on those Websites, which often charge users without notice, has made the market transparent and brought down the telecommunications fee, the ministry said.

The competition among the three carriers also helped lower handset prices. The policy maker should kick off more measures to encourage market competition, industry insiders said.

At present, China Mobile still accounts for about 70 percent of the country's total mobile user base.

Starting from this month, China has allowed users in Tianjin and Hainan Province to transfer to different carriers with their numbers unchanged, a move that is expected to beef up competition.

By the end of the third quarter, China had a total of 31.11 million 3G users, a 10.8 percent jump from the previous quarter, according to the ministry.

China's 3G users only account for 4 percent of the total mobile users, still much lower than the global level of 17.5 percent, according to Hu Jianbo, a senior research director under the ministry.

"It's a huge market potential for all carriers," Hu added.