By Star Chang, posted Feb 18, 2012 at 8:06 AM, 2,007 views,

China’s Mobile Internet Speed Is Second Slowest In The World

CHINA came in second last for mobile broadband connection speed during 2010 and 2011, and the situation won’t change until 2015. According to a report issued by GSM Association, China’s average mobile access speed was 50 kilobits per second, only higher than that of India at 19 kbps. It was much lower than the speed in Japan and South Korea with about 1,400 kbps – almost 28 times faster compare to China …

By the end of 2011, China had more than 900 million handset users. Only about 128 million were 3G users, who can access the Internet with a relatively high speed. According to analysys, the Chinese 3G user base will hit 300 million by the end of this year. Mobile broadband speed in China will expected to hit 1,384kbps in 2015 but it will still be one-fifth the speed in South Korea and Japan by then, the GSM Association said. China is testing the latest 4G mobile broadband technology but it will still take several years to make it commercially mature.

Though China has the world’s biggest mobile phone population, many of them are 2G users with limited mobile speed. Even with advanced networks in the cities, many Chinese in the rural regions will continue to use 2G phones with basic functions such as voice phone and short message service. China ranked only 90 for global average Internet speed, and now it is even worse for mobile Internet speed. It is embarrassing to see the infrastructure of mobile connection get so outdated in China compare to the country’s booming economy.

SOURCE: ShanghaiDaily