China Telecom plots 4Mbps broadband rollout

China Telecom is planning to increase broadband speeds to urban customers as a way of staving off continued line loss.

The biggest Chinese fixed-line operator last year lost 2.5 million residential voice customers, or roughly 1.3% of all lines. Its broadband business added 620,000 new users last month, but it has just 53.4 million customers, along with 56 million on its mobile network.

CEO Wang Xiaochu reportedly told senior managers at a recent meeting that he was not satisfied with the continued decline and planned to step up the carrier’s broadband network upgrades.

Telecom’s income in 2009 had fallen short of expectations as a result of the weak fixed-line performance, sina.comsaid, quoting a company source.

Wang noted that 80% of the company’s assets were in the wireline network, which he described as “the basis for the development of the entire business.”

“Right now we’re not at the stage where we need to dismantle the network,” he said.

Currently the carrier now offers broadband to its 189 million users at speeds as low as 512kbps and 1Mbps. Wang said the operator should focus on upgrading broadband speeds to enable it to offer 4Mbps services to all urban customers.