By Herman Lai, posted Jan 24, 2011 at 3:08 PM, 916 views,

Shanghai Is A Pathetic Place For Internet Users

Why? According to the latest report by the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) released on last Wednesday, the average internet speeds of Shanghai is at 73.2 kb/s, and its neighbouring, Jiangsu and Tibet are having quicker internet speed, which are 74.4 kb/s and 76.6 kb/s respectively.

In an op-ed on Beijing Morning Post entitled “Who Stole Our Internet Speed?”, writer Cai Hui points out:

1. Firstly, our internet service provider market is a tight oligopoly. Only a few enterprises have been allowed into the sector. This is why there is so little impetus on their part to improve internet speeds. This requires investments which means greater costs, and the income may not rise correspondingly. Given these conditions, who would do such a crazy thing? On the surface, the few companies in the business are competing with each other, but since no new entrants to the market are allowed, then rather than fighting a bloody battle, why not sign an under-the-table agreement to not improve speeds. Even if there are demands from superiors to raise speeds, they can all chime together: the technology is too difficult, there are problems within the company, we don’t need to follow in the footsteps of other countries, etc.

2. Netizens may be dissatisfied with slow internet speeds but it’s all too easy to block or ignore their voices. You’re not happy? I don’t care. Still not happy? I’ll block you from commenting. Still not happy again? I’ll plug off your website. Prior to this, there have been no relevant statistics to back us up. We would only be able to say subjectively that internet speeds seem to be faster overseas than here in China, but whenever someone says anything like this, we would be shut down by certain academics saying we’re “unscientific”, “irrational”, and so on. If not for this report, Chinese netizens would still probably be thinking we have the fastest internet speeds in the world, happy that we actually have such a thing called ADSL.

3. There are also leaks in industry evaluations. For the longest time, they’ve been focussing on just quantity, not quality. It’s as if we’ve moved right into the internet age if we’re able to just send emails — why do you need such fast internet speeds for? The lower the speeds, the fewer the applications, the easier the management will be. WIth such a management mentality, when will the issue of slow internet speeds ever be addressed?

Source: Shanghaiist