China is planning to provide Internet access toalmost all of its poor villages in the next three yearsas part of efforts to narrow the urban-rural digitalgap.
The ministry will work to provide both broadband and 4G data network to the villages, andencourage telecom operators to offer special discounts on network charges to providequality internet services at a low cost.
It also plans to ask cell phone producers to develop more low-priced, easy-to-use smartphones.
China had 1.08 billion 4G network users at the end of April, while fixed-broadband subscribersto China's three major telecom operators -- China Telecom, China Unicom and China Mobile -- reached 366 million.
