Quick Links

Mobile Security Industry News

[April 13, 2012]

Around China: TV services reach China's remote rural regions

LANZHOU, Apr 13, 2012 (Xinhua via COMTEX) -- Television is as indispensable as oxygen for Li Fuqiang, a 49-year-old herdsman in Gansu, an underdeveloped province in northwest China.

"Watching TV is the best way for me and my wife to kill the free time we have after grazing and get to know what happens elsewhere," said Li, whose family prefers news and legal channels as well as the station broadcast from Hunan Province, where their son attends college.

"In days without a satellite TV receiver, drinking and sleeping were all we had to do with our spare time," Li recalled of his humdrum life seven years ago. "No entertainment, and people felt bored and lonely." Li's home village Songmutan is located in a remote part of Sunan county, which is mostly inhabited by China's Yugur minority and has a population of about 12,000. A bumpy 35-kilometer packway connects his village with a town in Sunan county, which is 600 km away from the provincial capital of Lanzhou and 1,800 km from the nation's heart of Beijing.

The distance and steep, rugged mountains prevented television signals from wireless transmission towers from reaching the village for years.

But things began to change for Li and most other villagers living in China's vast remote rural areas in the 1990s, when a project was initiated by the central government to help all farmers and herdsmen get access to TV and broadcast programs.

From 2006 to 2010, 4,534 DBS (direct broadcast satellite) receivers were installed in 4,534 households in 76 villages of Sunan county with an investment of 1.63 million yuan (259,000 U.S.

dollars), said Yan Wenchang, director of the local administration of radio, film and television.

Li's DBS receiver, which the herdsman have dubbed the "pot" due to its shape, sits in the corner of the yard. Inside his room, the TV plays with high-definition picture quality.

All the villagers bought the receivers with an STB (set top box) for just 100 yuan, allowing them to receive 44 satellite TV channels, said An Yujun, secretary of the Songmutan village branch of the Communist Party of China.

With a diameter of 40 centimeters, the delicate "pots" are convenient for the herdsman to take with them when they are grazing. Whether at home or on the pasture, they can stay informed about goings-on at home and abroad as well as learn some things about grassland farming, said An.

Apart from Gansu, local governments across the country are aiming to "enable every rural family to have access to TV programs." Since last September, more than 2,730 solar-powered TV sets have been sent to herdsmen in Hotan prefecture in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.

Yan Wenchang said the government is exploring more routes for expanding broadcasting and satellite TV coverage in rural areas and enhancing the cultural product services available to rural residents.

"The project is moving on. By 2015, all herdsmen in Sunan will be able to watch TV programs via DBS receivers," he said.

[ Back To Mobile Security Homepage's Homepage ]

Request a Demo

Weekly Demonstration: SAP Mobile Secure
Solution including SAP Afaria Cloud

Free 30-day Trial

Best MDM in the cloud. Best MDM
Analytics. Best MDM price.

Featured Whitepapers

What Is Your Mobile Content Policy? A Checklist for Content Risk Mitigation
We are living in a world that only 20 years ago was the realm of science fiction. Devices once just barely imaginable have become common consumer items, carried casually in pockets and purses, with constantly growing capabilities.

SAP Enterprise Mobility: Bringing a Cohesive Approach to a Complex Market
Mobility and consumerization are creating complexity in the enterprise, but embracing the change can lead to more productive mobile workers as well as better communications with employees, partners, customers, and consumers. The trends in the enterprise mobility landscape drive a need for technology solutions to emerge.

View All

Featured Datasheets

Securing Enterprise Mobility for Greater Competitive Advantage
We are living in a world that only 20 years ago was the realm of science fiction. Devices once just barely imaginable have become common consumer items, carried casually in pockets and purses, with constantly growing capabilities.

Secure Mobile Content Management for the Enterprise
Every day employees move business files onto their mobile devices so they can work at home, on the road, or at client sites. The mobile workforce is a reality, as 80% of employees say they need to access work documents from outside the office.1 Instead of insecure, consumer-based tools, enterprises need a safe, reliable platform for managing content on mobile devices.

View All

Featured Webinar

Mobile Drives Field Service Productivity at Satellites Unlimited
Field service has never been more competitive or faster changing than it is today. Going mobile is a must to stay ahead of the competition, provide improved services, and keep up with ever-increasing customer expectations.

View All

Featured Webcast

End to End Mobility Requirements: IDC and SAP explore the 3rd Platform
A new IDC study states that we're in the midst of a shift that takes place once every 20 - 25 years - introducing a new technology platform that will inspire growth and innovation for enterprises of all sizes. IDC calls it the 3rd Platform - built on mobile devices and apps, cloud services, mobile broadband networks, "Big Data", analytics, and social technologies.

View All

Featured On-Demand Webinar

Analyst Webcast: Secure Content Management in a Mobile Age
Securing and managing content is taking on new importance as organizations try to cope with the explosion of business-oriented file sharing services while at the same time taking advantage of the proliferation of "smart" mobile devices.

View All