WCA January 2016

23 / 72

news news Industry
China’s $22bn
broadband
plan will
connect 30m
households
China plans to invest nearly $22
billion to provide 50,000 villages and
30 million rural households with
high-speed broadband by 2020.
A statement, released after a state
council executive meeting presided
over by premier Li Keqiang, said
stronger telecom services will help
attract investment and fuel
coordinated development, narrowing
the gap between urban and rural
areas.
The meeting urged more input from
the central budget, more support
from local policies and capital, more
telecom construction and
maintenance from private capital,
more public-private partnerships,
and a stricter supervision of
subsidies.
The meeting also stressed the
importance of e-commerce, saying
faster expansion of e-commerce in
rural areas will stimulate
consumption, benefit farmers and
support the real economy.
Xinhua reports that China’s state
council recently released a plan
promoting a nationwide project to
deliver telecom, radio, television and
Internet services over a single
broadband connection.
The three-network convergence
project is aimed at integrating data
transmission infrastructure and
facilitating information sharing.
The government will support the
research and development of key
equipment needed to converge the
networks.
Optical fibre will replace copper
wires to improve Internet speed and
transmission capacity, and Internet
bandwidth will be increased,
especially in rural areas.