China’s investment in information infrastructure over the next five years is expected to exceed 2 trillion yuan as outlined in the 13th Five-Year Plan. China's nationwide fiber optic network, high-speed broadband Internet and cloud computing centers will receive key support.
4G mobile internet, the Internet of things, cloud computing and big data. Those are the key words that can best summarize China's ambitious internet blueprint for the next five years.
China's broadband coverage will be available to 70 percent of all households by 2020 while mobile internet coverage will reach 85 percent. Those are among the targets set in China's 13th Five-Year Plan. Every 70 of 100 families will have access to high-speed broadband service over the next five years. That's 30 percent higher than the current coverage. Meanwhile, mobile internet coverage will be increased to 85 percent. That will add an additional 400 million users.
But the effort will be a daunting task. Ten million families in the cities in 2015 alone were registered to become new Internet users while that number was only 2 million in rural areas.
China's remote rural areas have become a kind of "isolated island" from the Internet. Statistics show there are over 50 thousand villages that don't have Internet access. Change is coming, however. By 2020, internet service will be expanded to 98 percent of all villages. More than 50 percent of all rural families will be able to surf the Internet at speeds of at least 50 mega bits per second. Most villages also will be covered with 4G mobile internet service. The 5G mobile internet is still under development but will be put into commercial operation within five years.