Hank, our head tech guy, has been dutifully scouring the Chinese internet and found this story (in Chinese). A summary of the story:

China Enters the Age of Broadband; Gradeschool Surfers Reach 30 Million

July 19th, 2006, Chinese Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) reported that China has entered a new age of rapid internet development it dubs “the Age of Broadband.” According to survey results, 123 million Chinese are now using the internet, representing a 19.4% increase over last year. Furthermore, nearly two thirds of all Chinese users have broadband connections.

More statistics:

• There are now 788,400 Chinese domain names
• Bandwidth usage has increased 159.2% from last year, reaching 214,175 M.
• Of China’s 200 million gradeschool students, 30 million (15.4%) use the internet

The full report in Chinese is also available online in PDF format.

ChinesePod has been keeping track of Chinese internet trends, including broadband usage. Below is ChinesePod’s own graph of some of the trends over the years.