At present, there is not a very standardized and unified definition of information service industry. From the international trend, information service industry can generally include the following parts: traditional telecom service industry; Internet-based services; Radio and television; Film and television, media and publishing; Software services.

Broad definition: On February 29th, 2003,65438, the National Bureau of Statistics issued the Interim Provisions on Statistical Classification of Information-related Industries, which divided the information industry into five parts: electronic information equipment manufacturing, electronic information equipment sales and leasing, electronic information transmission services, computer services and software industries, and other information-related services. The latter three can be regarded as the information service industry in the usual sense. In terms of industry categories, the information service industry includes telecommunications-related services, Internet information services, radio and television transmission services, satellite transmission services, computer-related services, software-related services, radio/television/movies and audio-visual services, news publishing-related services, and library and archives-related services.

Narrow definition: Information service industry is defined as: through information collection, development, processing and information platform construction, through public communication networks such as fixed network, mobile network or Internet, it directly provides voice information services or online information, data retrieval and other information services to end users. The types of information services mainly include content services, entertainment/games, business information and location information. Users of information services can be fixed communication network users, mobile communication network users, Internet users or users of other data transmission networks. In this definition, information services are value-added services in telecommunications services. Judging from the definition of the responsibilities of the Ministry of Information Industry at present, the information service industry should include traditional telecom services, Internet services and software services, and with the development of triple play in the future, it should also include radio and television.