- On April 8, China's MIIT (Ministry of Industry and Information Technology announced a statement on its website that China will is projected to have 150 million 3G users and the amount of 3G investment will total 400 billion RMB (US$58.8 billion; US$1 = 6.8 RMB) by 2011, the Xinhua News reported on April 9. According to the statement, the number of 3G base station is expected to hit over 400,000 units by 2011, with 3G coverage including all cities above prefecture-level, nearly every county and town, main highways, and sightseeing spots, according to the same source. To date, the amount of investment fetched for 3G deployment in China totaled over 160 billion RMB (US$23.5 billion) and the number of 3G users reached around 16.06 million as of February 2010, according to the MIIT in March.

 

Meanwhile, according to a separate statement made by MIIT on the website, China will also earmark 150 billion RMB (US$22.1 billion) for the optical fiber network deployment in the upcoming three years, during which China expects to see a net increase of 50 million broadband users. The total number of broadband users in China reached 346 million for full year 2009, which accounted for over 90% of all Chinese Internet users.