Telephones

By the end of 2003, the number of fixed-line telephone subscribers had reached 4,023,000 (up 24.9 percent on the year before), of which 2,865,000 were urban subscribers (up 22.8 percent) and 1,158,000 were rural subscribers (up 30.7 percent). There were some 803,000 new fixed-line subscribers in the year, 87,400 more than had taken up the service in the previous year.

Meanwhile the number of mobile phone subscribers had reached 2,789,000 thanks to 718,000 new subscribers, 76,700 more than had taken up this option in the previous year.

There were 26.2 telephones to every one hundred people, up 5.8 on the year before.

The number of Internet users had climbed to 230,000, an increase of 9.5 percent.

Radio and TV stations

By the end of 2003, Gansu had 15 television stations, 8 radio stations and 26 medium and short-wave broadcasting, transmission and relay stations. TV coverage extended to 89.37 percent of the population (up 0.77 percent points) and radio coverage to 88.9 percent (up 0.13 percentage points). There were 1,601,300 cable TV subscribers, up 4.13 percent from the previous year. There were 101 archives, where members of the public could access 802,600 volumes/copies.