The question of how to make IT more accessible to people in different regions of China was one of the topics addressed by attendees at the recent China Computerworld CEO & CIO Summit in Beijing.

The use of IT in China's rural areas has always lagged behind other regions in the country. The government's Golden Agriculture project, created to spur the rural use of IT, has been under way for 11 years, but the issue remains of connecting users over the last kilometer.

Li Youping, an academician at the Chinese Academy of Engineering, said the greatest obstacle to offering Internet access in rural and mountainous areas is the difficulty of building fiber-optic and broadband networks in these regions.

He suggested using satellite technology to put Web pages within the reach of Chinese farmers. Roughly 10G bytes to 30G bytes of information on Web sites is refreshed throughout China everyday. DVB-S satellite technology is capable of transmitting from 100G bytes to 300G bytes of information to end users. Satellite broadcasts are not affected by traffic congestion when more users are downloading information, which means important Web content could be distributed to every rural household, he said.

Under current plans, 95 percent of Chinese villages will have Internet access by the end of this month. With the implementation of distance-learning projects, many rural schools are now equipped with PCs. By adding an antenna and a server, an access point for information can be established in these villages, Li said.