On a day in November 2011, Mr. Xu living in Baoshan District, Shanghai joyfully experienced the “fivefold network speed”brought by China Telecom. When he returned home, he turned on his computer to download an application and surprisingly found that the downloading speed fast increased till it stayed at 2.3Mb/s – this is the speed from a 20Mb broadband.
The surprise and joy is resulted from the campaign of “increasing the network speed for MONET users II”launched by China Telecom Shanghai. It is known that the company had started to increase the network speed for household MONET users in Shanghai. The bandwidth of users with different packages is respectively increased to 10Mb, 20Mb and 30Mb. The increase had been finished at the end of November 2011, after which the average bandwidth of MONET users in Shanghai exceeded 16Mb.
Free Increase to 10-30Mb
It is known this network increase campaign is a part of the campaign of“Increasing Internet Speed for MONET Users, Signing for Free Experiences and Feedbacks for SMEs”, which China Telecom Shanghai launched on October 1, 2011.
All household MONET users have seen their bandwidth increase in the following pattern: a), those whose bandwidth has been increased to 2Mb, 3Mb and 4Mb will have 10Mb broadband connected to their houses; b), those whose bandwidth has been increased to 2Mb, 3Mb and 4Mb and having used China Telecom’s E-Surfing mobile phone-fixed line combination service will have 20Mb broadband connected to their houses; c), those whose bandwidth has been increased to 10Mb will have 20Mb broadband connected to their houses and d), those whose bandwidth has been increased to 20Mb will have 30Mb broadband connected to their houses.
According to the insider from China Telecom Shanghai, the network speed increase will be finished by updating the network terminals of China Telecom. The users do not need to apply for the increase or make any changes by themselves. In addition, the upgrade will not affect the users’Internet and of course, the upgrade is completely free for all MONET users.
Apart from a minority of users who are still applying for China Telecom’s broadband business, more than 1.1 million users had seen their network speed increase multiply by the end of November 2011. China Telecom Shanghai informed the users of upgraded broadband via bills and webpage push.
Mr. Xu’s household bandwidth was only 1Mb at first and he used the“Old Kid” favorable ADSL broadband package for which he needed to pay 1260 yuan per year. Then Mr. Xu booked the “My eHome – e6” package that combines the fixed line and E-Surfing mobile phones together, which allowed his bandwidth to increase to 2Mb. Before that increase, China Telecom Shanghai launched the campaign of “connecting fiber optic to the household to increase the Internet speed free of charge, connect- ing 100Mb broadband to each household starting with 20Mb broadband, providing free 100G space for family storage and giving users free access to WiFi in public hotspots”. Knowing this, Mr. Xu applied for changing the previous ADSL copper line access into Fiber to the Home (FTTH) in August 2011, when the MONET construction in his community was finished. Thus Mr. Xu became one of the first Shanghai citizens whose bandwidth was increased to 4Mb without any additional charges. During this campaign, the bandwidth at his home increased to 20Mb.
From 1Mb broadband several years ago to today’s 20Mb broadband, the network speed at Mr. Xu’s home increased by 19 times higher than before. Nowadays, it only takes him half an hour to download a 4Gb HD movie while in the past it usually took several hours. Watching online videos through TV189 E-Surfing Video Website, playing online games and viewing web-pages are much more fluent than ever before.
Two-Step Increase for Non-MONET Users
For the users who are not covered by MONET, they only need to promise that they will have the fiber optic network connected to their houses when it is available so that they can also enjoy free network speed increase if the condition allows. The 2Mb broadband can be increased to 4Mb and the 3Mb and 4Mb broadband can be increased to 6Mb.
When the MONET reaches these communities, the users can experience the aforementioned drastic increase of network speed increase if they have fiber optics connected to their homes.
It is known that the first users who have received the notice about free broadband increase only need to log onto the online office of China Telecom Shanghai to sign the contract or submit the contract to nearby business halls to get their broadband upgraded. For this campaign China Telecom Shanghai mailed about 1 million notices in total.
This campaign won great approvals from the users. The data from China Telecom Shanghai’s 1000 service hotline could receive more than 1000 calls about the “network speed increase” every day in November.
Followed by Other Cities
In April 2009, China Telecom signed with the Shanghai government about launching the construction of MONET. From then on, Shanghai took the lead in realizing the massive commercial use of fiber-optic network. By now it has recruited 1.1 million users. While promoting the construction of MONET, China Telecom Shanghai took the lead in launching the free network speed increase in China, bringing unexpected joy for many Inter users. According to the plan of China Telecom Shanghai, its MONET will cover 9 million users, or the whole urban area of Shanghai, and recruit 4.5 million users by the end of the “12th Five-Year Plan”, with the average bandwidth increasing to 50Mb.
Guangdong, Zhejiang and Beijing also follow Shanghai’s pattern and put forward their own plan of “construction of fiber-optic network”.
Experts said that the reform to the telecom industry in China will have the average bandwidth in China increase by more than 10 times as much as before within three or five years. The average bandwidth in cities will be over 20Mb and the biggest bandwidth will reach 100Mb. In addition, the charge for broadband services and the introduction of other telecom operators will facilitate this reform.
Chronicles for the construction of China Telecom Shanghai’s MONET
In April, 2009, China Telecom and the Shanghai government reached the “Strategic Cooperative Framework Agreement of Information Technology”. Two months later, it took the lead in launching the construction of Metro Optic Network (MONET) to build the network coverage with “100Mb broadband to each household, 1000Mb broadband to each building and 1Tb outlet”.
On January 1, 2011, China Telecom Shanghai launched the campaign of “connecting fiber optic to the household to increase the Internet speed free of charge, connecting 100Mb broadband to each household starting with 20Mb broadband, providing free 100G space for family storage and giving users free access to WiFi in public hotspots”, which was the first round of free network speed increase for a Smarter City.
China Telecom Shanghai announced on August 4, 2011 that the MONET of Shanghai had covered 3 million users and recruited 800 thousand users by the end of July.
On October 12, 2011, China Telecom Shanghai announced that the MONET recruited 1 million users with half of them enjoying 10Mb or higher broadband. Shanghai was the first city in China that connected the 100Mb fiber-optic network to the corporate clients.
From October 1, 2011, China Telecom Shanghai launched a new round of network speed increase, including “Increasing Internet Speed for MONET Users, Signing for Free Experiences and Feedbacks for SMEs”. By November, more than 1.1 million MONET users in Shanghai witnessed the upgrade of their broadband to an average level of 16Mb.