Liberalization & Deregulation

Internet Diffusion

Electronic Commerce

Hardware Manufacturing

Software Development 

Who uses IT?

IT Labor Market

IT Geographics

IT Financing

Government Policies

Legal Environment

Transborder Data Flows 

Analysis: IT Strengths & Weakness

Analysis: Impacts on the Business

Sources and Links

The construction of telecommunication infrastructure in China is following the principal of "government guidance, overall planning, unity of standards, joint construction, inter-connection and share of resources"1. The government investment will still play a major role but will be reduced gradually with the separation of administration from business as well as the introduction of market competition into the telecommunication sector. 

Phone line per 100:Now, China has 17.7 phone lines per 100 people nationwide and 27.7 lines in cities 2.

Fiber trunks: In 1998, China began investing in the so-called eight vertical and eight horizontal backbone optical cable. Wavelength division multiplex (WDM) technology was used to increase the current optical truck line transmission speed by four to eight times and 8x2.5 GB/s WDM technology will be used to enlarge the capacity of trunk lines 3. China has a total trunk length of 200,000 km of optical fiber, a total national phone exchange capacity 126 million lines with 98% of toll transmission digitalised, a total telephone network capacity of 170 million lines, 1.05 million mobile channels, 123 million telephone subscribers and 36 million mobile subscribers, a telephone density of 8%, and a data communications network of 800,000 ports. 

High Speed Networks: China has been working to boost its broadband networks through the use of advanced technologies and new cables. Notable projects now underway include: an integrated broadband multi-service network offering internet-based voiced voice and data services; a new broadband Internet access network designed for apartment building; the manufacturing of PCs with built-in cable modems; projects involving Digital Subscriber Line (DSL), Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL), and High-bit-rate Digital Subscriber Line (HDSL) technology 4. 

Mobile: China now has over 36 million mobile phone subscribers.(www.123jump.com, UTStarcom Shines in China) Every day, about 30,200 new mobile customers sign up for service. China's average annual growth rate of mobile telephony was 150 percent in 1990's. Despite the large absolute number of mobile phone subscribers, nationwide cellular penetration remains low at about 1.5% 5. 

TACS: total access communication system is a European standard. China had over 7 million analogue cellular telephone users. 

GSM: China introduced Global System for Mobile Telecommunication in 1994. China has 29 million GSM users. 

CDMA: Code Division Multiple Access technology, the basis for the third generation of mobile telecommunication technology, was developed by U.S companies. Four international companies are currently allowed to operate pilot projects with this technology in four Chinese cities: Lucent in Guangzhou, Motorola in Beijing, Nortel in Xian, and Samsung in Shanghai. Currently, there are over 5,000 CDMA mobile phone users in Beijing and 1,000 in Shanghai 6.

It is estimated that the total number of mobile phone users in China will reach 100 million with a penetration of 8% by 2005, and 200 million with a penetration of 15% by 2010. 

Satellites: China's largest satellite network was completed by the former MPT in 1995. It uses 18 earth stations in major cities and provides a total capacity of 7,500 voice-grade circuits. In addition, China has a one-third share in Asiasat, Asia's most successful commercial satellite system 7. 

Earth Stations: China has 55 earth stations in place. International earth stations include 5 Intelsat (4 Pacific Ocean and 1 Indian Ocean), 1 Intersputnik (Indian Ocean) and 1 Inmarset (Pacific and Indian Ocean regions). 

Submarine Cable: China has several submarine cables, Sina-US, Sina-Japan and Asian-Europe. The first phase of Sina-US submarine cable has be put into commercial business and the second phase is in construction. The cable is 27,000 km and invested by China, USA, Hong Kong and South Korea 8.

Domestic telecom players: The roles of the major players in China's telecommunication industry are undergoing a revolution of sorts. For many years, the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications represented the government's monopoly. In the face of rapidly expanding demand for telecommunication services, the MPT, like so many other telecommunication monopolies, has been very slow to respond. 

Due to its slowness to respond to market demands, MPT was merged into the newly established Ministry of Information industry (MII). 

Directly under the MII are the provincial Posts and Telephone Administrations (PTA). Reporting to the PTAs are the city Posts and Telephones Bureaus (PTB). 

In addition to the MII with its public networks, several ministries, notably those of railways (MOR), electronic industries (MEI), and power (MOP), and the People's Liberation Army (PLA) have been allowed to develop, own, and operate their own telecommunication networks. (US Provision of Telecommunications Goods and Services in the PRC: Chinese Policies and American Strategies, by William G. Chismar) China Telecom, China's largest communications network operator, falls within the jurisdiction of former MPT and was the monopoly in telecommunication in China. 

In 1992, MEI joined with MOR and MOP to form China Unicom, also known as Lian Tong and more recently, China Com. Formed primarily as a data network operator, but with clear intentions of competing directly with China Telecom. 

In Sept. 1993, the MEI and China Unicom formed a new company, Ji Tong. MEI repositioned itself to confront MIIs monopoly by having China Unicom established as the owner of a national data network and Ji Tong as the provider of services over the network.