As outlined in the Government Work Report for five consecutive years, China will further facilitate faster and more affordable internet connections while improving the quality of internet services, the State Council executive meeting chaired by Premier Li Keqiang decided on April 7.

“The government should fully implement existing policies to make internet services faster and more affordable,” the Premier said.

He added that recent years have seen much higher speeds in fixed broadband and mobile internet at much lower prices, as arrangements of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the State Council have taken effect.

These achievements have improved people’s life quality, lowered entrepreneurial costs, boosted employment, promoted entrepreneurship and the digital economy, and added to the new growth impetus.

“The expanding scale of flexible jobs in recent years is supported by faster internet services at lower prices, which are provided by basic telecommunications enterprises, especially the telecommunications industry,” the Premier said.

The meeting decided to promote construction and application of 5G and gigabit fiber-optic networks, with over 200 million households to be covered this year. It also stressed network upgrades and basic access to networks for urban households. Moreover, broadband networks will cover administrative villages and be extended to production sites, along main roads and other key areas.

The meeting also decided to cut average rates for broadband and dedicated internet access services for small and medium enterprises by another 10 percent, and reduce rates offered to special groups such as the elderly and disabled.

The government will resolutely rectify monopolies in broadband connection and forced price increases in commercial buildings, ensure that policy benefits go down to end users. The market threshold for service suppliers who connect broadband to networks should be lowered within a reasonable range. And participation of privately owned businesses should be supported in order to promote fair competition and dip in rates.

It also urged increasing the efficiency of network resources through joint construction and sharing, and expanding backbone network bandwidth to improve the quality of cross-network communication.

These efforts will also benefit basic telecommunications service providers. With more data consumed and more users attracted, they can gain a bigger market and more revenue, Premier Li said.