By Wang Shen
The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology recently published a plan for promoting broadband networks in impoverished areas to expand the Chinese network distribution range, as reported by the Shanghai Securities News on Thursday.
China's 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-2020) stated that China would cover over 90 percent of the impoverished villages with broadband by 2020, but the recent plan will accelerate the pace and achieve this goal by 2018. The latest plan also announced that 98 percent of the 122,900 listed poor villages would be covered by broadband by 2020.
By the end of this year, 43,000 impoverished villages will be connected with an optical fiber network.
China plans to provide poor people with rapid, less costly network services and the access to public services, such as rural e-commerce, online education, and remote medical treatments.
The Chinese government will also speed up the coverage of 4G networks in rural and remote areas. Impoverished people can use discounted internet service plans to relieve their financial burden of using the broadband network.
China will accelerate the popularization of smart terminals and design easy-to-use and low-cost 4G smartphones to fulfill the needs of poor people.
The government encourages high-tech companies to design mobile APPs that include a social network, e-commerce, agricultural techniques, medical treatments, education and so forth, as well as being suitable for impoverished people and the minorities.
The recent plan pointed out the importance of promoting "Internet + education" and will strengthen the construction of high-speed broadband networks at various schools in poverty-stricken areas. It suggested co-operating with local education departments to promote the application of remote education services.
The recent plan also emphasized the concept of "Internet + health." China will improve the network conditions of medical service institutions in poverty-stricken villages and promote remote diagnosis, treatments, online medical education and online chronic disease management.
