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BEIJING — China, already the world leader in cellphone use, has surpassed the USA as the No. 1 nation in Internet users.
The number of Chinese on the Internet hit more than 220 million as of February, according to estimates from official Chinese statistics by the Beijing-based research group BDA China.
Sure, they're catching up to the US in total numbers, but when comparing that as a percentage of total population it's still a tiny number. (We've got to remember China has 4 times the population of the US)
One thing the US is lagging in though is internet speed... google it.
Yep, very true. I believe they're able to provide broadband internet access quite cheaply there- not sure if it's due to lesser regulations, government subsidies or what?
But they have limited access to the whole interent. I would expect china with its huge population to have more people using it.I thnik many in the US have gotten over more speed and bigger computers which is good because at one time IMO too much time was spent on the internet by many americans.From what I hear the boom is also over in Japan as far as compuiter buyin is concerned.
Yep, very true. I believe they're able to provide broadband internet access quite cheaply there- not sure if it's due to lesser regulations, government subsidies or what?
The main reason from what I hear is that we invented the internet, and much faster lines are available to developing countries who are just starting to get internet... and it costs much less to install new lines than to replace old ones.
No, the USA's overall internet speed is slow. Average is something like 2Mbps. Even in Canada, it's much faster at ~7Mbps. A lot of Europe has even faster. Japan has the world's fastest, 61 Mbps.
Sure, they're catching up to the US in total numbers, but when comparing that as a percentage of total population it's still a tiny number. (We've got to remember China has 4 times the population of the US)
Slightly more actually but the bottom line is that if only 1 in 4 Chinese were "wired", they would have more internet users than we have people.
I'd recommend everyone take a visit to China to really get a handle on how many people are actually there. When visiting the various Chinatowns in US cities, most visitors remark on how congested and dense the population seems to be. They don't realize that to the newcomers from many Chinese cities, that seems like the wide open spaces from their perspective.
My wife was born in Guangzhou (Canton) and always said that shopping in San Francisco Chinatown was far less stressful than in Hong Kong or Canton. Having visited two Chinese cities myself, I tend to agree. I'm actually surprised it took them this long to pass us in internet users.
Even in the US, many rural areas enjoy much faster internet connections than in cities because they're getting the new stuff. In the cities, we're still working around technologically antique systems. We've had internet longer but our stuff is getting old. It's not in a providers best interest to constantly upgrade equipment when the old stuff is somewhat satisfactory and there are new markets to exploit. I spent the better part of last year in rural Minnesota, where the town didn't even have running water till the late 1950s but standard internet speeds were faster than anything available here where I live. Ironically, I live only a few miles from where one of the first two computers linked via the telephone back in 1965. Oddly enough, a huge percentage of the US is still using the same old system. China never had an extensive phone system so it's just not practical to use POTS when transmission towers that serve a much wider area can be erected overnight.
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