Broadband developments in China have taken a rather different course than many commentators were expecting a year ago. DSL grew rapidly, adding over 1.4 million lines during the year, but not quite as rapidly as the Chinese themselves expected. By the end of 2002 there were nearly 3 million ADSL lines installed and available but fewer than 2 million actual subscribers, Point Topic reported. Forecasts in the China DSL Report suggest there will be another 6.8 million DSL lines shipped during 2003. China Telecom Group, the biggest Chinese telco, is reported as having 2.7 million DSL subscribers by mid-2003. At the same time broadband LAN access was expected to be even bigger than DSL. However LAN access grew rather slowly and was actually overtaken by DSL during the year.
