Zhejiang Has Over 10 Million Telephone Users

- East China's Zhejiang Province now has more than 10 million fixed phone users, a spokesman with a local telecommunications company said in Hangzhou Wednesday.

The popularization rate of fixed phones has increased from 0.53 percent in 1982 to 34 percent at present, ranking first among all Chinese provinces and up 5 to 6 percentage points from the world's average.

The province has stepped up efforts in the construction of telecommunications infrastructures since the late 1980s. By the end of 1994, the province's telecommunication network extended to all 11 cities and prefectures.

To solve the difficulty of installing fixed phones in rural areas, the province launched two projects in 1997 and 1998 respectively, to ensure all villages to have phone lines and all townships to have access to optical fiber cables.

To date, the province has established a sophisticated data transmission network that covers all localities in the province, and the technology of the network has reached the advanced international level.






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