In March this year, the number of registered customer accounts of licensed Internet service providers surged to about two million, 190 per cent higher than that of a year earlier.
The number of mobile phone users also rose substantially, from 0.69 million in 1995 to 3.78 million last year, representing an average annual growth rate of 153 per cent over the period.
It grew further to 3.97 million at the end of March this year.
Surfing the Internet and downloading can be very slow during high traffic periods or when accessing Web sites with rich graphics and multimedia information.
Internet access speed depends on a number of factors, including the speed of the modem, the telephone network, PC power and general traffic. Of these, the modem speed is the most crucial.
With more and more high- quality graphics and multimedia information available on the Net, ordinary modems (usually of 56K speed) simply cannot match the requirements of Internet users, both at home and in the office. In view of this, more and more Internet service providers are starting to offer broadband services for faster Internet access.