Tibetans hop on the e-commerce fast track as communications infrastructure catches up
By Zhang Hongpei in Lhasa Source:Global Times Published: 2019/3/19 17:51:55
Workers of China Tower's Tibet subsidiary at a base station of communications in the outskirts of Lhasa on March 8 Photo: Li Hao/GT
Dawa Ciren, a Tibetan farmer, chats with his daughter via WeChat beside his house in the outskirts of Lhasa on March 8. Photos: Li Hao/GT
Editor's Note:
The remote and mountainous Tibet Autonomous Region in Southwest China has witnessed rapid improvement in its communications infrastructure, which is not only restricted to making phone calls but also brings business opportunities related to e-commerce, big data and cloud computing. The Global Times traveled to Tibet to interview local people involved in communications construction, which is helping to eliminate the digital divide with the rest of the country. This is the first of a two-part story.
Dawa Ciren, a farmer living in Dadong village, not far from Lhasa, capital of Southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region, is chatting with his daughter via WeChat, the most used social network in China.
In one hand, he's holding his smartphone, in the other, he's balancing his granddaughter, who's saying hello to her mother. The scene has become a normal part of Dawa's life, but it would be hard to imagine just a few years ago.
Beside his two-story house stands a several-meter-high China Telecom basic station tower, and Dawa has been able to use it to get mobile signals since 2008.
"I began using WeChat in 2011 with a smartphone. It helps me a lot with my grazing on the pastures because sometimes my herds get lost and I can call for help on WeChat to see if anyone has seen them," Dawa told the Global Times, pointing to a picture of his cattle on the phone.
"The social network has also increased my business opportunities by interacting with the outside," he said.
People living in remote rural areas in Tibet are actually very open to becoming part of connected society. "There is wide use of smartphones to chat through WeChat, browse the internet and shop online in these areas, and there is much demand for this communication technology," said Li Jian, an associate research fellow of Beijing-based China Tibetology Research Center.
Li recalled his study experiences in the high-attitude Ngari Prefecture in the far west of Tibet, and Nyingchi in the region's southeast, which has complex terrain. He found that people living in these areas are very open-minded in embracing new and modern communications technology and treated it as a daily necessity.
"That is very helpful to eliminate the digital and information gap between Tibet and other areas," Li told the Global Times.
Li added that some elderly Tibetans who find it difficult to type on a phone usually ask youngsters to help them shop online. "It surprised me that access to the internet is so badly needed in Tibet's remote towns and villages."
Signal all the way
Thanks to improvements in power supply and communication facilities, mobile internet access is widespread across the plateau, providing an information bridge to areas that were previously marked by a digital divide - the gap between those who have access to the internet and advanced technology, and those who do not, who face being left behind by modern life.
China Tower, the state-owned communications infrastructure giant, is acting to bridge this digital divide by providing basic facilities.
Gama Valley, dubbed the most beautiful valley to the east of Mount Qomolangma, known as Mount Everest in the West, is a favorable hiking route for many trekkers, especially those from the West. However, it was also a place where trekkers easily got lost before 2016 when the China Tower Tibet subsidiary completed nine communications stations there.
"Only the first station could be reached by car, but we needed to hike to all the rest," Ciren Luobu, general manager of communications development department of China Tower Tibet subsidiary, told the Global Times in a recent interview, recalling his experience checking the stations when they went into operation at the end of 2016.
"Normally, a station costs 300,000 yuan ($44,696.7) to 400,000 yuan, but those in Gama valley cost up to one million yuan due to the difficulty of construction and labor costs," said Ciren.
"For example, we needed local tour guides familiar with the valley's terrain and pack animals like horses and yaks to haul basic construction material, such as sand and cement, as well as large solar panels up the valley."
It took Ciren and his team a week to hike the 55-kilometer long valley, when they also faced the unpredictable dangers of trekking in remote areas.
Now, a 4G signal from China Mobile, the state-owned carrier, can be found in this "trekker's heaven."
Easier access, better economy
Data from the Tibet Regional Telecommunications Bureau showed that by the end of 2018, there were 40,100 base stations in Tibet, including 13,800 3G network stations and 14,100 4G network stations.
Mobile broadband, encompassing 3G and 4G networks, has reached 2.755 million families, accounting for 83.35 percent of the total.
Currently, broadband has reached 782,000 families in Tibet, with every 100 households owning 80.91 fixed-line broadband internet connections.
As of the end of 2018, 98 percent of villages in Tibet have access to optical cables and more than 90 percent have a 4G signal, according to Dazhen, deputy head of the information and communication department at Tibet Regional Telecommunications Bureau.
All the villages in Tibet, over 5,200 in total, will be connected with broadband under a universal telecom service project, which is estimated to cost three billion yuan.
"We aim to reach the 4G network to 98 percent of villages by the end of this year, with the remaining 2 percent left due to relocation or road inconvenience," Dazhen noted.
"Tibet's communications infrastructure covers broad areas in the region and the industry's development is not lagging behind the heartland of China due to mature technology application," said Dazhen.
Tibet has one-eighth of China's territory by land with 3.4 million permanent residents.
"Townships and villages are like scattered stars in the sky, which determines the increasing investment and costs of equipment maintenance," she noted, adding these obstacles could not hinder the construction pace in the vast land, which is seeking closer connection with other parts of China as well as the outside world.
According to a report released by China's e-commerce giant Alibaba in early March, among the surveyed 209 counties across Tibet, Sichuan, Southwest China's Yunnan Province, Northwest China's Gansu Province and the
Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, 80 percent of which are located in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, nine counties or districts that have seen the fastest growth rate of gross merchandise volume (GMV) last year are in Tibet.
Lhasa's Chengguan district, which houses the regional government, had the highest GMV last year, said the report, takungpao.com reported.
During last year's Single's Day online shopping festival on November 11, online sales of products from Tibet on major e-commerce platform JD.com surged 1,141 percent compared to October 11. The number of online orders during the shopping festival in 2017 grew 3,000 times compared to 2008, according to JD.com Inc.
"Some Tibetan farmers around me are riding on the e-commerce tide to sell their products like beef, honey or other natural products to the more developed eastern China where organic food is much in demand," Dazhen said.
