Reducing digital divide in remote Yunnan

A woman from the Dulong ethnic minority group makes a call. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

China is arguably making the world's biggest push to reduce the digital divide between rural and urban residents, with mobile carriers and telecom tower builders pouring tons of resources into ensuring that more people can access fast, affordable mobile communication and broadband network services.

The move is part of broader efforts launched by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the Ministry of Finance, which aims to cover 98 percent of China's administrative villages with 4G mobile signals by 2020. Starting from the end of 2015, the central government, local governments and telecom carriers have invested more than 40 billion yuan ($5.8 billion) in total in its first three rounds of pilot projects to expand optical networks to 130,000 administrative villages, including 43,000 poor villages.

Ahead of this year's World Telecommunication and Information Society Day which falls on Friday, China Daily reporter Ma Si visited a string of villages and cities across Yunnan province to see how local telecom companies are overcoming geographical barriers to expand network construction and how people in mountainous areas and ethnic groups are benefiting from the upgraded internet services.