Director Mao Qian with the Optical Communication Committee of the China Communication Society said November 3 that by the end of June this year, the number of Chinese netizens had reached 103 million, including 53 million broadband users and 49.5 million people having access to Internet through dialing.

Mao Qian made the above remarks at the 4th "International Photoelectron Expo & Forum" held in Wuhan. He said that these figures came from the just completed 16th China Internet Development Statistics Report of this year. According to statistics from the Ministry of Information Industry, at present, China's broadband users are composed mainly of ADSL end-users. By the end of July this year, the number of China's ADSL end-users had touched 33 million, accounting for two-thirds of broadband users.

Although broadband users have developed rapidly in number, most of the users, especially high-end users, are not satisfied with the broadband switch-in speed. An investigation result shows that 5 percent of broadband users are "very unsatisfied" with the networking speed, 17 percent of the users "are not so satisfied", and 40 percent commented that the networking speed as only "ordinary". Mao Qian predicted that the optical fiber technology accessible to end-users, that can help quicken the networking speed, will get faster development in two to three years.

Reports say, currently China has the largest broadband access market in the world, the number of its broadband users is the greatest in Asia, but family broadband penetration rate is still lower than 3 percent, far lower than that of the Republic of Korea, Singapore and some other countries.

By People's Daily Online