Chain Cyber Bars Closed down.

(From SinoCast China IT Watch)

SHENZHEN, August 17, 2006, SinoCast -- China Unicom, the second largest mobile telecom carrier in China, said this week that it will close 2,000 cyber bars nationwide because Internet service providers imposed "unfairly high" Internet access fees on the bars, which will instead focus on its mobile phone operations to compete with arch rival China Mobile.

Shanghai Unicom confirmed on August 14 that it has shut down two flagship China Unicom cyber bars in Shanghai. Each net bar costs the carrier tens of thousand of Chinese yuans to operate.

"We can't shoulder the increasing costs of the Internet access fees which are …