By the end of 2005, China boasted 100,000 MB export broadband
capacity, 700,000 websites, 1.09 million China-coded domain names,
49.5 million computers with Internet access, and 111 million
Internet users, ranking second in the world. A host of web-based
services have thrived, for example network education, online
banking, E-commerce, Internet advertising, news, video, and charged
postal services, Internet Protocol (IP) telephone, SMS
text-messaging, online recruitment, information services and
games.
Working on the basis of results from the Public Key
Infrastructure (PKI) project in the 863 Program, three years'
efforts by over 300 scientists completed the security and
application platform of the government infranet. After
breakthroughs in many key code technologies, a data security and
network credit system for government affairs has basically been
established, satisfying demands for inter-departmental,
multi-application communication, resource sharing and application
integration.??
The information industry has become a mainstay of China's
economy. In 2005, the added value of China's information industry,
which is the world's third largest, stood at 1,130 billion yuan.
Output values, sales and profits of electronic and telecoms
manufacturing all outstripped those of traditional industries,
making the greatest contribution to national economic
growth.?
Posts and telecommunications are important elements of the
information industry. After decades of construction and
development, a national postal network has taken shape, with
Beijing and other major cities as the centers, linking all cities
and rural areas. As for the telecommunications network, a basic
transmission network featuring large capacity and high speed is now
in place. It covers the whole country, with optical cable as the
mainstay, supplemented by satellite and digital microwave systems.
Every provincial or autonomous regional capital, with the exception
of the Tibetan capital Lhasa, is connected by at least two optical
cables. In economically advanced coastal and inland areas, optical
cable has reached villages, towns, urban communities, and high-rise
buildings, thus becoming the main technology for transmitting
information. Meanwhile, China has participated in the construction
of a number of international land and sea-bed optical cables, such
as the China-Japan, China-ROK, and Asia-Europe sea cables, as well
as Asia-Europe and China-Russia land optical cables. China
initiated the construction of the 27,000-km Asia-Europe optical
cable, the world's longest land optical cable system, passing
through 20 countries in its journey from Shanghai to Frankfurt in
Germany. So far, China has established telecommunication business
relations with more than 200 countries and regions in the
world.???
By the end of 2005, China has had 743.86 million telephone
subscribers, 350.43 million fixed lines and 393.43 million mobile
phone subscribers, constituting the world's largest telephone
network. Since China started mobile telecommunication business in
1987, the mobile network now has covered all urban and rural areas,
and international roaming service exists with over 200 countries
and regions all over the world.???
Now, the public data telecommunications network has taken
initial shape, with group data exchange, digital data, computer
Internet, multimedia telecoms, and frame relay networks as the
mainstay. Covering over 90 percent of counties and cities in China,
it is among largest public data telecommunications networks in the
world. Radio and TV networks continue to develop rapidly, and the
number of radio and TV users exceeded 200 million by the end of
2005, almost all villages in China having access to radio and TV
broadcasting.
