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China to Top U.S. in Broadband Subscribers

Posted by samzenpus on from the growing-faster dept.

An anonymous reader writes "China already is rapidly approaching the United States as the country with the largest number of broadband subscribers, according to the El Segundo, Calif.-based firm, and by the end of the year, China is expected to have 34 million subscribers, compared to 39 million in the United States. By the end of 2007, China is expected to have 57 million broadband subscribers, compared to 54 million in the United States, with an even wider lead in the years to follow."

12 of 530 comments (clear)

  1. i would hope so by hsmith · · Score: 5, Insightful

    considering they have 4x as many people than us in an are that is a bit more densely populated

    1. Re:i would hope so by Waffle+Iron · · Score: 5, Funny
      and I'll bet the only address they're allowed to connect to with FTP is 127.0.0.1

      That's not so bad; it's a kickass site. Lightning fast, too.

  2. Great! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    High speed access to everything the government wants them to see.

  3. So? by Raul654 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Look at a population map of china. Now look at one of the US. Half of china has a population density of less than 2.5 people per square mile, and the other half has more than 500. Getting a large section of the country wired very quickly is pretty easy. The US population, on the other hand, is spread really thin. So it's not surprising that China could overtake the US quickly.

    --


    To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
    --E.C. Stanton
  4. But most of the content is unavailable... by binaryspiral · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So what if more people in China have broadband... most of the content of the Internet is monitored and filtered by the Chinese government.

    Score one for the rest of the free world.

  5. Re:Percentages by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    China has 1,298,847,624 and USA has 293,027,571

    So China has about 4% and USA has 18%.

  6. Great firewall by mrogers · · Score: 5, Funny

    Now they can fail to find information about democracy, Falun Gong, Christianity or encryption software at blazing 2 megabit speeds! Hooray for broadband!

  7. Further Developments by Capella+or+Bust · · Score: 5, Funny

    In other news, reports indicate that the China has far surpassed the US in terms of the number of households that contain "lungs." These "lungs" are being used by the Chinese to breathe "air," and it is widely fear that the Chinese may very well breath more "air" than any other civilized nation on earth, followed closely by India.

  8. Re:1.1 Billion vs 280 Million by SaDan · · Score: 5, Funny

    Yeah, but they'll NEVER beat us at BUTTER consumption!

  9. Dishnet aims for India-wide WiFi coverage in 2 yrs by anandpur · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Other news by 2007 every Indian can be Subscribers of Broadband

    http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=tech nologyNews&storyID=8386370

  10. Re:1.1 Billion vs 280 Million by jmv · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Next: China tops US in fuel consumption. That's when it's going to get really scary (I guess it's already scary that 4% of the world population consumes 25% of the energy).

    --
    Opus: the Swiss army knife of audio codec
  11. Re:1.1 Billion vs 280 Million by TheKidWho · · Score: 5, Insightful

    and also produces 25% of all goods.

    Makes sense doesn't it now? Turn off your selective memory.