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Undersea cable to speed net access in China Chinese authorities have approved the laying of an undersea cable that is expected to increase the speed at which internet users in northern China can access overseas websites by up to 50 per cent. Asia Netcom, the international cable arm of state-controlled fixed-line telephone operator China Netcom, will run the new 350km cable from the eastern port of Qingdao to its submarine regional network linking South Korea, Japan, Taiwan and Hong Kong. The new cable, which will be connected early next year and have capacity of 80 gigabytes, will ease the strain on Chinese networks burdened by growth in the number of local internet users and the popularity of data-heavy services such as video downloads and online games. The cable would have capacity of 80 gigabits per second and bring a noticeable improvement in internet access speeds to websites in the region and North America for northern Chinese users, said William Barney, Asia Netcom's president and chief operating officer. "Across the Pacific it will probably be a 10-15 per cent improvement, depending on where you are. To access websites in Korea and Japan it will be almost 40-50 per cent better," Mr Barney said. Access to overseas websites from Beijing and other areas of northern China is often very slow, particularly during times of peak demand. China's consumption of international telecoms bandwidth soared 170 per cent between 2003 and 2004, Asia Netcom says. The cable will also allow Asia Netcom to connect its 19,500km submarine cable system directly to the domestic network of parent China Netcom, which acquired the former Asia unit of Global Crossing, the bankrupt US telecommunications infrastructure company, in March 2003. "It will be the first Chinese telephone company essentially to have a private submarine cable leaving its shores and hitting all the major destinations in Asia," Mr Barney said. "It's a chance for us to participate in the growth of the internet out of China, which is the fastest growing market in the world today." The decision to allow construction of the first new cable to northern China in years does not mark any relaxation of the government's determination to control what its citizens see or do online. Internet data that passes through the cable to Qingdao will still have to be routed through an internet "gateway" established in Beijing, part of a system that allows Chinese censors to block access to a thousands of overseas websites and to monitor data transfers. However, by making it easier to access unblocked websites, the cable should help to fuel the growing popularity of the internet a trend that means further capacity expansions are likely to be needed soon. Asia Netcom quotes forecasts suggesting China will add 21m new broadband internet subscriptions between now and 2008. |
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