Will HRCT/China Telecom/StreamingAsia & ETNS Be Part of This?
Tuesday, 29 May 2001
China's ICT sector girds for Olympics
BEIJING, China - China's telecommunications and information technology industry, already the nation's fastest growing sector, is expected to grow by 20% per year over the next five years, spurred on by Beijing's determination to host the most technologically advanced Olympic Games ever if it is selected as the site for the 2008 games.
Massive investment in and expansion of telecommunications, bradband, smartcard technology, video conferencing and other on-demand services, GPS technology and internet will make Beijing China's most wired city and its digital gateway to the world.
Internet access is already growing faster in China than anywhere else on Earth, and that growth rate will only accelerate. By mid-year 2000, China's 518 Internet service providers already served more than 16.9 million subscribers. Internet users in Beijing along grew by 60% just in the first six months of 2000 to 3.08 million.
China now has the second largest fixed line telephone network in the world. The Beijing network alone contains more than one million kilometers of optical fiber serving 5.76 million local telephone subscribers.
With an annual growth rate of an astounding 73% China's mobile phone market is potentially the largest in the world and Beijing is leading the way. Mobile phone coverage is already 98% in central Beijing and more than 90% in suburban areas. The number of mobile phone subscribers in Beijing is expected to grow from 3.3 million in 2000 to 10 million by 2008, when an estimated 69% of Beijing's population will have mobile phones.
Beijing's Olympic bid is providing a major impetus to the growth of IT and telecommunications in China. As part of its bid, by 2007 Beijing is committed to:
Expanding its fiber optic networks to cover all Olympic sites, providing a secure roadband network to deliver the Games to the world.
Introducing a mobile communication network capable of handling 500,000 calls in the Olympic site area.
Establishing a digital cable TV network capable of HDTV transmission for all Olympic venues.
Installation of GPS technology to cover all Olympic transport routes to be used both for the Olympics and public transport.
"Across the board in infrastructure, technology, facilities and environmental protection, we are sparing no effort to ensure that if selected as the site for the 2008 Games, Beijing will host the most successful, most technologically advanced and greenest Games ever," said Mr. Liu Jingmin, Vice Mayor of Beijing and Executive Vice President the development of Beijing's telecommunications infrastructure and narrowing the digital divide as more and more of Beijing's people gain access to the internet and other key technologies of the new economy."
" Success seems to be largely a matter of hanging on after others have let go." ~ William Feather
