Cernet2, a high-speed internet backbone, connects 25 universities in 20 cities. Cernet, or the China Education and Research Network, has been able to achieve a monstrous speed of up to 40 gigabits per second during a trial run conducted on 7 December.
Cernet2 is the first network based on pure Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) technology.
http://www.axcessnews.com/technology_122704a.shtml
This is rather good news somewhat, as maybe it will pressure western countries still refusing to move up to IPv6 to do so. What still remains however is that large firewall in place by the government to filter out the rest of the world. Inside China, the speeds are incredibly fast, as you would expect from a large asian country like that. Also, piracy is all over the place. You can stream VCD quality (or better) movies, preleases, screeners etc to a computer in an internet cafe and its cheaper than going to the movies.
So ISP, when are YOU going to upgrade to v6?
Do not envy Chinese internet users. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_China
Also,
>as you would expect from a large asian country like that.
...What?
Most asian countries (exceptions to india, thailand etc) have very fast internet speed at very cheap prices. Taiwan, HK, Japan, Korea, etc all offer connection speeds that are way above western countries for very cheap prices. This excludes Sweden, because they are just crazy.
>>3: Again, what? The places you mentioned are not large Asian countries, especially when compared to China; and there's quite a difference in that they are all first-world nations (allow some flexibility with that term in HK's case), whereas the majority of China's interior is still second-world, if that. And Sweden is not Asian...
In other words, I don't see why China having high-speed internet would really be predictable. Or necessary... I see this as a modern equivalent of the gold-plated train stations in Soviet-era Moscow and such; a misguided use of resources in an attempt to show the world a false front of opulence.
To elaborate on my previous comment: I suppose if you are going to do something (like build an internet backbone), you should do something right (like making it IPv6 compatible). However, I think China should have other priorities at the present before building internet backbones....
I think this may be an effort to assist their economy. Companies are becoming increasingly dependent on IT infrastructure. Lacking fast net access is a definite detriment to a large corporation.
But China does have bigger problems. They should also put a cap on that unsustainable rampant growth they're having...
>>6: What growth? Population growth? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-child_policy
Quick with the Wikipedia links although I wouldn't be calling you "kami" anytime soon. You still fail to explain why their population is still increasing? Maybe you want to mention that even if every couple was to have 1/no children it would still take up to 100 years before the population would make a decrease, pending wars/famine/disease. This is because people live to around 70-100 years at most. Children born in China today should they live to that age will see the population decrease, if other factors don't give way first.
China's population is expected to start dropping around 2030, and when that happens, there will be royal economic fuckage. Inverted population pyramid = few workers supporting lots and lots of retirees = bad.
http://www.iiasa.ac.at/Research/LUC/ChinaFood/data/pop/pop_22.htm
http://carriedaway.blogs.com/carried_away/2003/11/why_i_dont_fear.html
>Quick with the Wikipedia links although I wouldn't be calling you "kami" anytime soon.
...What?
Anyway, agreed to >>9. This is already happening to some parts of Europe, though there population decline was due to societal causes rather than Big Brother's laws. Fortunately, China has been relaxing that policy in the last ten years or so...