China Tops US With More High-Speed Lines

Nation's rise in broadband technology 'a major milestone'
By Harry Kimball,  Newser Staff
Posted Sep 27, 2008 3:41 PM CDT
China Tops US With More High-Speed Lines
A Verizon lineman installs fiber optic cable on a telephone pole in New York.   (AP Photo)

China's broadband network is now bigger than America's, InformationWeek reports. In fact the Asian nation has the planet's biggest high-speed network—which "means a lot more for building a modern, hi-tech economy" than China's spacewalk yesterday, one expert said. "This is a major milestone for China."

China was expected to overtake the US in broadband lines 2 years ago, but their networks ran neck-and-neck until this week. Now, strong growth in China and a steep falloff in US lines has given China supremacy, with more than 78 million lines. America is also falling behind Europe and Asia in high-speed line growth, a shortcoming that has "serious implications" for competing in a high-tech world, one analyst said. (More United States stories.)

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