By carrying out the program of ?Letting Telephone Reach Every Village,? 85 percent of the province?s villages can be reached by telephone. By the end of October 2001, the number of telephone users (including households and mobile phone owners) reached 10.14 million, 1.89 million more than that at the end of 2000. The number of fixed telephones reached 5.45 million, 579,000 more than that at the end of 2000, with a growth rate of 11.9 percent. Of this figure, 4.21 million were in the urban areas and the rest 1.24 million were in rural areas. The number of telephones installed in urban individual households was 3.56 million, and that of rural homes, 1.18 million. For the time being, the number of mobile phone users has reached 4.69 million, 12.7 percent of the total population.

In 2001, 769,000 people registered as Internet users, 620,000 more than in the previous year, or an increase of 416 percent.

Radio and TV stations:

There are 12 broadcasting stations in the province. The first set of programs of the Heilongjiang Radio Station can reach 73 percent of the province?s population while the coverage of its second set of programs is 37 percent. There are 5.27 million radio sets. The province has 23 TV stations and 388 TV transmission or relay stations, covering up 70 percent of the population. A total of 4.73 million TV sets are being used. There are 106 cable broadcast stations in counties and cities, in addition to 1,076 amplifying stations in villages and towns. The total length of broadcast cable extends 84,700 km; and the loudspeakers are as many as 2.371 million, covering 62 percent of the rural households.