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People's Daily Online>>China Society

Beijing's net gets speedier connection

By Li Ying (Global Times)

08:35, November 28, 2011

Beijing's major telecom operators plan  to accelerate the speeds of city's broadband networks by the end of the year.

The upgrade will start with those who connect to the Internet via optical fiber, rather than those who connect using an ADSL modem and telephone line. 

Speeds may rise from 2M (2 megabits per second) to 8 or 10M by the end of the year. There will be no extra charge for the upgrade.

The move came soon after Shanghai Telecom, a subsidiary of China Telecom, increased the broadband speeds of some Shanghai users from November 17.

China Telecom will upgrade speeds on optical fiber networks in Beijing to 10M and 20M networks.

"It won't be a problem to upgrade the speeds of optical fiber users to 8 or 10M by the end of December," said Tang Liuming, spokesman for Beijing Unicom.

The company will also increase speeds for the majority of Internet users, who connect using ADSL, from 2M to 4M, the Beijing Daily reported. 

Other network providers such as Beijing Gehua CATV Network and Great Wall Broadband Network will also speed up connectivity.

"Besides 1M, 2M and 4M, customers now have new options to choose 10M and 30M from November 20 to February," said a Gehua customer service representative yesterday.

"But the numbers for 10M and 30M are limited, with 800 homes for 10M and 200 homes for 30M," she noted.

The speeds of all broadband networks will reach 20M by the end of 2012 and reach 100M by 2015, said Mao Dongjun, an officer from the Beijing Municipal Commission of Economy and Information Technology in a talk show with eBeijing, the official website of the Beijing government.

"Beijing's telecom operators have been preparing for the upgrade for several years. Speeds will be sufficient to operate more services such as quicker video transmission," said Zeng Jianqiu, professor in Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications.

"For example, at 1M, if you spend 10 minutes downloading a film, now you only need 1 minute to download it under 10M service," he said.

However, in global terms, China's Internet speed is still slow. 

The average global speed is 5.6Mbps, and China, with an average bandwidth of 1.8Mbps, ranked 71 in the world in 2010, according to a report on China's information-based development (2011) published on July 28 by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.


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