FYI: TELECOM Digest V13 #344 -- re china

[Dave Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>]

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I am also including some information from an article in the {People's
Daily} (not the most objective source).  I hope some of the readers
will find it of intrest.

   The Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications (MPT) expects gross revenue
   to expand at a growth rate of 25 - 27% and to generate 2% of China's GNP
   by the end of the 90's.  The industry's ratio of GNP last year was 0.7%.
   Last year, China invested $2.54 billion in the industries fixed assets.

   Last year, China added exchanges with a capacity of 4,345 million lines,
   which brought the country's total capacity to 32 million lines -- among
   the world's top ten nations.  The network includes 19.26 million lines
   for public use and 12.74 million for privite and specialized use.  [Your
   guess what they mean by a public and privite line is as good as mine.]

   By the end of 1992, China had installed 19.11 million public telephones,
   which means that for every 100 Chinese, there were an average of 1.63
   phones compared with 1.29 in 1991.  This is equivalent to the ratio in
   most countries with per-capita GNP of about $600.

   But problems are obvious in the sector's development, including a lack of
   long distance telecom capacity, a shortage of management and technical
   personal, slow postal delivery and unprofessional service by postal
   and telecom workers.  For example, the number of families in Shanghi 
   queuing to have phones installed rose to about 400,000 by the end of last
   year from 170,000 in 1991, even though in 1992 more than 200,000 families
   had phones connected.
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