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All New Homes In China Must Have Fiber Optic Internet Connections
redletterdave writes "Only a small number of U.S. cities can boast fiber optic connections, but in China, it's either fiber or bust. China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has now ordered all newly built residences to install fiber optic connections in any city or county 'where a public fiber optic telecom network is available.' The new standards will take effect starting on April 1, 2013, and residents will be able to choose their own ISP with equal connections to services. The Chinese government reportedly hopes to have 40 million families connected to fiber networks by 2015."
in any city or county 'where a public fiber optic telecom network is available.'
Any how many of these houses will meet that rather essential qualification?
Hell, I could install a fiber network in my house and run it out to the curb. But that isn't going to make any difference if there is nothing to connect it to, now is it?
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
Duh. if the network IS AVAILABLE of course it will be installed. The cost is negligible if you do it with the other services.
This is just some bureaucrats trying to take credit for something that's already happening.
Governments are the most miserable owners of infrastructure -- except all others. I don't know of any case of a public infrastructure going over to private owners and then improving with better services, more complete coverage and lower prices. Even privatizing telecommunication infrastructures in Europa was no privatization of a public infrastructure, it was just allowing private companies to compete either on the shared infrastructure still owned by a company whose majority owner in turn was the government, or with their own infrastructure they had to built themselves.