China’s national broadband plan gives weight to wireless


Posted on September 19, 2013  /  0 Comments

I thought 35 billion was a bit much. That was what the now under-radical-revision NBN was going to cost the Australian taxpayer. Even for a country with more than 60 times the population of Australia, USD 323 billion seems excessive. But, hey, they have to do something with the cash that’s piling up . . .

China plans to invest 2 trillion yuan ($323 billion) to improve its broadband infrastructure by 2020 with the aim of taking the nearly entire population online, a vice minister said on Wednesday.

The government is trying to improve fixed-line and wireless connectivity throughout China, home to the largest number of mobile phone users in the world but where only 45 percent of the population have Internet access.

China’s investment in broadband could benefit global network equipment makers such as Ericsson and Alcatel-Lucent , as well as home-grown players like Huawei Technologies Co Ltd and ZTE Corp .

“Our 3G network has to cover cities and villages and at the same time, we have to put 4G into wide commercial use,” Shang Bing, a vice minister at the Ministry of Information and Industry, said in an interview published on official website www.gov.cn.

Reuters report.

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