China Unveils Broadband Strategy and Implementation Plan

According to the Circular of the State Council on Printing and Distributing the Broadband China Strategy and its Implementation Plan (Documents of the State Council [2013] No.31) issued on 17 August 2013, China has promoted the Broadband China Strategy to a national strategy from a sector strategy. 

According to the Broadband China strategy, China aims to provide broadband access to all urban and rural areas by 2020. And by 2015, half of the Chinese households are expected to use fixed broadband, 3G mobile coverage rate is expected to reach 32.5 percent, and fiber-to-home services will cover all urban area, with urban and rural household broadband speeds reaching 20 Mbps and 4 Mbps respectively. While the average download speed for Chinese broadband users in the first half of the year was only 2.93Mbps.

It is the first time for China to announce a specific timetable for the development of broadband as a national strategy. The national strategy will bring huge business opportunities to the telecommunication and Internet sectors and related enterprises, such as the three telecom operators (China Unicom, China Mobile, and China Telecom).

The Broadband China Strategy will definitely boost the demands on global submarine and terrestrial cable capacity, bring huge opportunities to the global telecom, internet and submarine cable industries.

For the full version of the Circular of the State Council on Printing and Distributing the Broadband China Strategy and its Implementation Plan (国务院关于印发“宽带中国”战略及实施方案的通知), please click here.