Connecting remote rural area with mobile Internet

Using smartphones for the first time in their lives, villagers in a remote mountainous region in southwest China are now connected to the world thanks to mobile Internet.

Farmers in Tongguan in Liping County, Guizhou Province, even held festivities, including the singing of traditional songs and lively firecracker displays, to celebrate the landmark launch of fast wireless Internet service over the weekend.

China Mobile, the country's largest telecom operator, erected a 4G base station in the area to make Wi-Fi available to the local villagers.

ZTE, a leading mobile phone maker, offered smartphones to around 400 households in the village.

"The access to mobile Internet marks the village's entry into the digital era, which brings with it new concepts of learning, living and working," said Wu Zhengang, the Communist Party of China (CPC) chief of the village.

Residents in Heidong, another village in the county, are also now covered by the wireless network and were donated smartphones by Lenovo.

Chen Yuanyuan, program director of Tencent Public Welfare Foundation, and also the initiator of the program, said this was part of Tencent's 15 million yuan (2.4 million U.S dollars) program to establish a museum to preserve the "Grand Song" of the Dong ethnic minority group.

There are around 3 million Dong and its people are mainly concentrated in Liping. Its "Gang Song", a kind of folk choral music with a history spanning 2,500 years, has been inscribed on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO.

"With Internet service, the 'Grand Song' could get better exposure and more people around the globe could get a glimpse into the Dong culture," said Chen.

"The Internet could also help disadvantaged areas better develop their economy," said Chen.

"I have told locals that with the Internet, you can sell tea, embroideries and other local products on e-commerce platforms. You can even keep in touch with family members that live in the big cities with the instant messaging service WeChat," Chen said.

This Internet initiative will boost the economy and cultural development in rural areas," said deputy secretary general of ZTE's Public Welfare Foundation, Guo Xianjie.

China was officially connected to the Internet on April 20, 1994. Over the past two decades, it has spurred profound changes to people's lives and become a powerful driving force behind China's economy.

But in some remote mountainous regions, where power outages are common and there are no asphalt roads, the locals have never even heard of the word "Internet".