May 10, 2005
China's Communications Future
Interesting insight on China from World Changing:
"As China continues to urbanize (its urban population having exploded from 19% in 1979 to 40% in 2003), huge numbers of workers are being drawn from the comparatively poor countryside to booming urban job markets.
Qi Wang and his colleague Jonathan Anderson calculated that at least 100 million people now work away from their primary residence, and that number will swell to 200 million by 2010.
Traditionally, Wang explained, Chinese people have very strong ties with their families and hometowns. The family home is a spiritual center. So maintaining ties with one's roots is a very big deal to the almost 10% of the population which is working away.
And providing communication services for that mobile population is in turn a very big deal.
50% already have access to mobile technologies, with low-cost options spreading and the total number of mobile phone minutes used in China going up 20% a year. But, Wang said, while the urban market is exploding, rural areas lag behind, PC penetration in the hinterlands is "essentially none," and there are few if any efforts to develop village technologies like the simputer, Jhai or hole in the wall approaches."
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