Telecom reformer rides sharing economy model

China Tower Corp gets busy optimizing infrastructure of the country's mobile companies

In a quiet street in western Beijing stands a building, not new, not tall, not clad in fancy glass common to modern high-rise office towers. In fact, the building is so ordinary looking that you would barely notice it when passing by. Even two nearby restaurants had to close due to the sparse human traffic.

But this building is where China experiments with one of the most drastic reforms in State-owned enterprises. It is the headquarters of China Tower Corp, a company with more than 300 billion yuan ($43.5 billion) assets. The enterprise is a pilot project for China to restructure State-owned enterprises and to give the market a bigger role in the telecoms sector.