Here's an estimate of broadband access in the USA, for comparison.<p>> "In 2021, we expanded our study, manually checking availability of terrestrial broadband internet (wired or fixed wireless) for more than 58,000 addresses. In all, we checked more than 110,000 address-provider combinations using the FCC Form 477 data as the “source of truth”.<p>> "This study confirms our estimate that at least 42 million Americans do not have access to broadband. For the first time, we also estimate broadband availability for all 50 states."<p><a href="https://broadbandnow.com/research/fcc-broadband-overreporting-by-state" rel="nofollow">https://broadbandnow.com/research/fcc-broadband-overreportin...</a><p>I suppose the Chinese government could be inflating reports of connectivity for propaganda purposes, but that also seems to be what the FCC is doing:<p>> "The figures and estimates cited by the FCC rely upon semi-annual self-reporting by internet service providers (ISPs) using the FCC-mandated “Form 477.” However, there is a widely acknowledged flaw with Form 477 reporting: if an ISP offers service to at least one household in a census block, then the FCC counts the entire census block as covered by that provider."
The article in Chinese gives a lot more technical detail: <a href="http://finance.people.com.cn/n1/2021/1231/c1004-32321622.html" rel="nofollow">http://finance.people.com.cn/n1/2021/1231/c1004-32321622.htm...</a><p>In short, every one of the over 600,000 “administrative villages” in China (<a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villages_of_China" rel="nofollow">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villages_of_China</a>), with an average population of ~1000 each, now has broadband internet, which is either Fiber or 4G connectivity. Over 99% of villages have both. The average broadband fiber speed is 100Mbps.<p>This has been a long-term effort. At the start of the 13th Five Year Plan (2016), 50000 villages had no
broadband internet at all, while another 150000 had speeds less than 4Mb/s. Since then, 130000 fiber networks and 60000 4G base stations were constructed.<p>The Chinese article also goes into detail on the efforts that were expended into getting the last few villages connected up; these were remote, hard to reach settlements with a high construction cost and a low number of viable subscribers. However, since the national plan was clearly 100% of all villages, the national and provincial governments covered much of the costs necessary to bring broadband to these remote areas.
Helps with instant surveillance and moving to a cashless society controlled with social credit points.<p>I wonder if solving the famine problem is as high up on their list.
I just wish they do not. It is not 1984. But in another sense it is.<p>Want the villiage cut off and enslave all villager you need a technology to monitor them real time. And just got it.<p>Right to unplug and disconnect. That is the new initiatives.