In 1994, China has completed 7 long-distance fiber-optic cable trunks, bringing
the total length of China's fiber-optic cable to 67,845 km, connecting all the
29 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities. The length of the digital
microwave paths reached 46,829 km. 14 satellite earth stations have been newly
built or expanded. Throughout the year, 10.83 million new local and rural
telephone subscribers were added, making national telephone penetration reaches
3.2%. For the data communications networks, the coverage expanded from 30
cities to over 600 cities and the network ports increased from 5,800 to over
6,000. Various international connections are under construction and new
services have been put into operation such as Home Country Direct, the 800,
packet switching, email, video phone, videoconferencing, high speed private
digital lines... Telecom turnover last year is over US$ 6293 million with a
56.2% growth rate against 1993, but all these are just the
START.
Information from 'China Posts And Telecommunications 1994 Annual Report'