The Chinese ministry of industry and information technology (MIIT) in its action plan said that it aims to take 4G LTE coverage in China to all urban and rural areas by 2018.

Main 4G telecoms in the country are China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom.

The country also plans to install fiber optics in more than 80 percent of its villages, according to the three-year plan called Internet Plus.

The Chinese government aims to upgrade the telecom network infrastructure to boost customer experience. The ministry has set the target of basically completing a broadband-based, integrated, ubiquitous and secure next-generation national information infrastructure.

China will be focusing on promoting 4G, and boost research and development of 5G, according to the action plan announced on Monday.

The action plan will integrate mobile Internet, cloud computing, big data and the Internet of Things (IoT) with modern manufacturing to encourage the healthy development of e-commerce, industrial networks, and Internet banking, and to help Internet companies increase their international presence.

India 4G

The India government and telecom minister Ravi Shankar Prasad does not have any 4G target. But private telecoms such as Reliance Jio Infocomm, Bharti Airtel, Idea Cellular and Vodafone have already started making investment in 4G LTE networks to cash in on mobile Internet boom.

TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) recently indicated that India has around one million 4G LTE user base till June 2015.

India is nurturing BharatNet, an ambitious project, to connect 250,000 Panchayats with optic fiber across the nation by 2017.

The BharatNet project has achieved 106,721 km of optical fiber cable pipe and 78,132 km of the optical fiber across the country.

The government has completed the project in Kerala, Chandigarh and Puducherry. The Center has also finalized the tender for 2,438 blocks consisting of 81,774 gram panchayats.

The India government aims to have 2 lakh CSCs from the present 1.44 lakh CSCs. 1.25 lakh rural Post Offices will be converted into CSCs.

China wants 4G for e-commerce

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology announced on October 14 an investment of 140 billion yuan to upgrade rural Internet infrastructure to bolster e-commerce business.

Currently, rural e-commerce is developing rapidly in China’s eastern coastal regions, but less developed inland areas are still facing obstacles, including a lack of access to the Internet and the shortage of skilled workers.

MIIT data shows that among the 50,000 villages that have no access to the Internet, 98 percent of them are located in China’s middle and western provinces.

China aims to speed up e-commerce development for the farming and agriculture sector, according to an action plan released on September 25.

China will set up e-commerce infrastructure and policies in order to build agricultural e-commerce brands in the next three years.

According to Alibaba, China’s e-commerce major, rural e-commerce was worth more than 140 billion yuan or $21.95 billion last year.

Alibaba plans to invest 10 billion yuan to establish 100,000 village service centers in the next three to five years. JD.com, a leading ecommerce website in China, will hire 100,000 villagers as agents to expand their business in 100,000 villages this year alone.

Baburajan K
[email protected]