Faster, cheaper broadband from major carriers
Print Edition
CHINA’S major mobile carriers announced faster broadband services and a new round of discounts on Internet charges yesterday in response to a government call for more advanced digital systems.
Premier Li Keqiang called for “faster broadband and lower Internet prices” when attending an executive meeting of the State Council on Wednesday.
On the heels of his comment, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said yesterday that the government planned to add 80 million broadband users this year via network upgrades that would include faster connection speeds and discounts on Internet charges. There are currently about 196 million broadband users in China.
On average, the price of data packages announced by the three major mobile carriers will drop more than 30 percent this year.
China Mobile said it will cut the charges on its 4G data package by 50 percent, beginning in July.
It also said it will introduce a new package offering data used at night and during holidays at a lower price of 0.01 yuan per megabyte. The price for international roaming services will be cut up to 70 percent, the company said.
China Telecom said it will offer free broadband upgrades to users with lower average bandwidths to 4 Mbps per second. Premium services for optical network users could provide speeds of up to 100 Mbps. Charges for mobile data users will drop nearly 30 percent to 25 yuan per megabyte.
Similar promotions were launched by China Unicom. It will introduce a family data package between 4G and broadband.
Beijing Unicom and Guangdong Unicom will offer upgrades for all their broadband, 2G and 3G users without extra charges.
The carriers will also allow users to transfer and accumulate unused megabyte allocations for future use.
According to the Broadband Development Alliance, the average download speed of Chinese Internet users in the first quarter rose to 5.12 megabytes per second, up 2.19 Mbps from a year earlier. However, that figure still lags behind developed countries.
As part of the expansion plans, the ministry said China will raise the average bandwidth to 30 Mbps per second in provincial capitals and in the provincial-level cities of Shanghai, Beijing, Tianjin and Chongqing. Other cities will be hooked up to the faster system by the end of 2017.
Optical broadband speeds of 100 Mbps will be accessible to almost all urban families.
The ministry also said that 600,000 4G base stations will be built to cover rural towns, while an extra 14,000 villages will get access to optical and broadband networks.
The ministry said that by the end of 2017, telecom enterprises will have invested 1.1 trillion yuan (US$179.74 billion) more to upgrade China’s Internet infrastructure.
In order to tackle high fees, fair competition will be encouraged, Xinhua news agency reported.
The ministry demanded a more open market and stricter monitoring of the telecom market in an effort to offer consumers more services and cheaper prices.
“In China, where currently about 650 million people are mobile Internet users, mobile Internet has become a major infrastructure,” Xinhua cited Chen Jin, general manager of Zhongan Insurance, as saying. “Internet-related innovation and technological advancement are highly based on improved experience of mobile Internet users.”
Since the “Broadband China” strategy was floated in August 2013 by the State Council to boost information consumption and expand broadband coverage across the country, the development of China’s broadband network has seen significant improvements.
By the end of March, 290 million families were enjoying easy access to optical broadband networks, and more than 200 million users were using fixed broadband networks. About 2.27 million 3G and 4G base stations have been built to offer services to China’s mobile broadband users.
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