More than 90% of poor villages in China will be covered by broadband in 2018

Beijing. June 11. Silkroadnews - China plans to speed up the pace of construction of network infrastructure facilities to cover more than 90% of the poorest villages by broadband this year, China Daily reports.
By 2020, 98% of the 122,900 registered poor villages across the country are planned to be covered by broadband.
Since the end of 2015, China has launched three pilot projects in the field of telecommunications services with investment volume exceeding 40 billion yuan ($6 billion).
When the projects are completed by the end of this year, 130,000 administrative units, including 43,000 people living in poverty, will be connected to the fiber-optic network. The network speed will reach 65M, which is more than the average speed in urban areas.
The central government allocated subsidies for pilot projects at a unified rate of 30%.
China also intends to take measures to speed up the popularization of intelligent terminals, applications for the provision of various services that actively promote the development of the platforms “internet + education” and “internet + health”.
Reportedly, the role of the broadband network in the fight against poverty is not being fully utilized, and the level of penetration into e-commerce, online medical care and education is low.
Therefore, the promotion of intelligent terminals should be accelerated and efforts should be made to promote Internet applications in the areas of e-commerce, education, health care and agricultural production.