China announces plans for high-speed network

China has plans to build a nationwide high-capacity optic-fiber network that would be able to carry Internet, telephone and television services.

While the United States still has no national broadband policy, China will become the latest international competitor to commit to high-speed Internet access nationwide.

The network would be based on a 1,000-gigabit bandwidth network that would increase China's current capacity significantly from the current one-gigabit capacity.

Once completed, every user in the network would be able to have 100 megabit per second Internet connection.

The State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, which will be overseeing the build-out with the Ministry of Science and Technology, administered a successful trial network in the Yangtze River Delta that covered 30,000 users.

China announced no timetable for the construction or estimates of the cost of the plan.

High-speed Internet to be rolled out nationwide (China.org)

Speed Matters: High Speed Internet for All (Speed Matters brochure)