China - for comparison, operators will invest £37 billion this year in optical fibre network infrastructure

Everything is relative. Digitimes reports the three broadband operators (China Telecom, China Unicom and China Mobile) will invest a total of CNY 370 billion (£37 billion) in optical fibre infrastructure in 2012. This will be an increase of 10 per cent over 2011.

The aim of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) is to increase the fixed broadband by 20 million in 2012 to 176 million (with more than 50% having download speeds of more than 4 Mbps) and FTTx subscribers reaching 35 million by the end of 2012.

See also Total Telecom.