The provincial government has decided on a construction project called “Broadband Connecting Shanxi”. It is expected that by 2020, the optical network will cover all the households in cities and the broadband network will cover towns and countries.

This year and next will be for its promotion and popularization; and by 2015, Shanxi will have invested 20 billion yuan in this project, with a goal of fixed-broadband users reaching 6.6 million, and with fixed broadband popularizing rates of urban and rural households respectively reaching 65% and 17%, more than 90% of natural villages (more than 20 households) accessing broadband, and WLAN covering most key public areas in cities. By 2020, Shanxi will have spent 45 billion yuan to make sure that all natural villages (more than 20 households) will have access to broadband and that the construction will stretch to all of them.

According to the plan, Shanxi will develop 2 to 3 model cities with broadband connections. In cities, fiber-to-the-home services will be adopted in newly built residential districts while fiber-replacing-cable operations will be brought into built-up areas. In rural areas, it is expected that administrative villages should be covered by a broadband network while populated natural villages should have access to an optical network. As for remote mountainous regions, the goal can be realized with a combination of wired and wireless networks.

The project for supplying WLAN in public areas is supposed to cover 398 key public areas, such as administration service halls and public transport junctions in Shanxi by 2016. The plan focuses on Taiyuan, the capital city and other central cities. Within the area of education, there are plans to connect all the elementary and secondary schools in Shanxi to a broadband network and promote the construction of digitized campuses. Additionally, the government has decided to develop Internet terminals which are more convenient for special education thus better guaranteeing the right to education for the disabled.

The project of intelligent transportation plans to set up a command center in each city and strengthen public security controls through video surveillance and an online information sharing system. With the construction of online supervisory controls and a data acquisition and command & dispatch system, efficient network-based management can be realized.

The project of culture digitization is aimed at digitizing various books, and with the help of the broadband network to promote the development of the digital dissemination of culture.

The project of integration of information and industrialization is expected to introduce networks into the production and management process of enterprises. The project is designed to promote interconnection between enterprises and encourage innovation based on the network.

With these six projects, Shanxi aims to thoroughly popularize the broadband network and provide a fully convenient service for people.