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More Tibetans to get broadband internet despite censorship

Tibet Sun newsroom

A Buddhist spins prayer wheels on the pathway below the Potala Palace in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, China, Saturday, 20 June 2009. More than half of villages in the so-called Tibet Autonomous Region in Tibet will have broadband internet service within three years.File photo/AP/Greg Baker/Tibet

More than half of villages in the so-called Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) in Tibet will have broadband internet service within three years, according to a Xinhua report posted on the People’s Daily Online.

Chimchi, the chief of the TAR Administration for Telecommunications, had signed a deal to increase broadband internet access in rural Tibet with China Telecom Group, one of China’s three major telecom operators.

China Telecom, one of the world’s largest fixed telephone and broadband service provider, will invest more than 2.5 billion yuan (368 million US dollars) in infrastructure and facilities across Tibet in five years beginning this year as a part of the deal.

“Broadband internet service will be extended to cover 60 percent of 5,931 villages in Tibet by 2011,” the report quoted Chimchi as saying.

According to Li Xiaohua, general manager of China Telecom Tibet Branch, broadband internet service is available only to urban areas of 72 counties in Tibet. And 3,421 Tibetan villages are covered only by dialing service.

China is known for clamping down on the internet. Not only does it block website content but also monitors the internet access of individuals.

Websites related to the persecuted Falun Gong, taboo topics such as Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, freedom of speech, human rights, democracy, information on Taiwanese independence, Tibetan freedom movement, the Dalai Lama and his teachings are blocked in China.

Tibet Sun learned from a visitor to Tibet that its site could not be accessed in Tibet.

Copyright © 2009 Tibet Sun

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