More residents in Shanghai will have access to broadband this year, as Shanghai Telecom moved to expand broadband networks to accommodate another 200£¬000 customers.

Users of broadband have reached 8,800 in Shanghai.Among them 2,200 use asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL), with the rest using fiber services.

"We expect broadband to draw more individuals and enterprises to Internet," said Zhang Weihua, vice-president of Shanghai Telecom.

Broadband is a transmission channel carrying wider range of frequencies than telephone lines. The bandwidth of broadband is at least 200kb/s, much higher than the 56kb/s modem on telephone lines.

Broadband makes possible vedio on demand, online trading and distance-education, which all require high accession speed.