Introduction to the Policies on Facilitating Faster and More Affordable Internet Connection MIIT （May 15, 2015）
Broadband network is a national strategic public infrastructure. Building high-speed, high-quality, more affordable and convenient broadband infrastructure and service system will not only drive information consumption and effective investment, and facilitate integrated development of industrialization, informatization, and new urbanization, but also reduce start-up costs. It will provide strong support to the “double engines” to encourage public entrepreneurship and innovation, increase public products and services, and promote the development of “Internet +”, which is of great importance to stable growth, economic reform, structure adjustment, and improved livelihood. On May 13, the Executive Meeting of the State Council reviewed the issue of speeding up the development of information infrastructure and facilitating faster and more affordable Internet connections. Since the issue the "Broadband China" strategy and Implementation Plan 2013, the Ministry has taken positive steps to implement the Plan together with relevant departments, carrying out broadband special initiatives in four consecutive years, which gives a significant boost to the development of broadband services. By the end of 2014, the number of households covered by FTTH totaled 256 million; the number of broadband subscriptions at 8M and higher speed amounted to 82.067 million, accounting for 40.9% of total fixed broadband subscribers (200 million); 733 000 4G base stations were built up with 583 million mobile broadband subscribers. For the last three years, the tariff for mobile traffic has dropped by approximately 60%, and that of fixed broadband services has decreased by about 30%. But we should be also aware of the fact that China’s ranking on the ICT Development Index remains around the 80th in recent years, even lower in terms of international gateway bandwidth per netizen, mobile phone penetration and wireless broadband penetration rates. In general, China’s broadband development is still lagging behind the growing user needs for information consumption; the speed of Internet connection, in particular, falls considerably short of international standard and user expectations; the proportion of Internet access fees accounting for the income per capita is still high; unbalanced regional development between urban and rural areas and the quality of service are to be improved. There are many reasons behind these problems: lack of market competition and vitality, which requires deep reform and openness; less support to the broadband construction in rural and remote areas without effective guarantee to the right of way in broadband construction. II. Major Measures and Objectives The main work to be carried out in the next step includes: 14 measures in the following three aspects: in terms of accelerating infrastructure development and increasing the network speed, we propose to adopt the following 4 measures: speed up the construction of high-speed broadband network, improve the capacity of backbone networks and inter-network interconnection capabilities, enhance the construction of application infrastructure and promote the co-construction and sharing of telecommunication infrastructure; in the aspect of effectively reducing network tariff and continuously improving the level of services, we propose to adopt the following 5 measures: push the telecommunication companies to lower network tariff, improve the operational efficiency of telecommunication companies, open the telecommunication market in an orderly manner, enhance the regulation on the telecommunication market and improve the level of public services; with respect to improving supporting policies and enhancing the implementation, we propose to adopt the following 5 measures: move forward with the campaign of streamlining administration and instituting decentralization, improve the supporting policies, improve the broadband network standards, ensure the construction of broadband networks, and standardize the communication construction behaviors. streamline administration and institute decentralization Through the above measures, by the end of 2017 we will strive to provide 100M fiber access to all families in cities with districts and most of the families in cities without districts. By then the average internet access speed of broadband users in municipalities, capital cities and other major cities will exceed 30M; the average internet access speed of broadband users in other cities with districts and cities without districts will reach 20M. Fiber will cover above 80% of administrative villages with substantial penetration of broadband in rural families. The 4G network will cover both urban and rural areas at a full scale, with the penetration rate of the mobile broadband close to the level of the moderately developed countries. The average fees for mobile data traffic and fixed broadband will be significantly reduced.
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