The
Ministry of Information Industry announced on Friday that China now ranks second in the
world in terms of its phone network capacity and number of telephone users. China now has
a total of 230 million fixed and mobile phone users.
The Ministry attributed the increase to the sustained and rapid development of the
country's information industry over the past five years. China's telecom network, once a
manual analog network for single business, has changed over to an automatic, digital and
large capacity network capable of handling diverse business. China has acquired
state-of-the-art technology including optical fibre, digital microwave, satellites,
computerised networks, mobile telecommunications, and the Internet. In the year 2000,
China saw a 16-fold increase in the rate of China's backbone network and a 100-fold
increase in bandwidth. While national telecom systems were established in finance, customs
and taxation sectors, e-training and e-media also began to flourish. China
Central Television |
