A Shanghai district won't have to worry about severed fiber-optic cables, for it'll soon go totally wireless.

Last month's earthquake off Taiwan severed undersea fiber-optic cables, disrupting Internet services and communications services between the mainland and Taiwan, Hong Kong, the US and South Asia. Work is still on to fix the cables.

City authorities have approved an ambitious plan to extend wireless services across the heart of Jiading, a district on the outskirts of Shanghai, by the end of this year.

That would make Jiading the first place on the mainland to be linked by resilient radio waves instead of cables.

Jiading is famous as the venue for Formula One Chinese Grand Prix. It was chosen by a non-profit think tank Intelligent Community Forum (ICF) recently as one of the 21 winners of the Intelligent Community Awards.

The ICF is based in New York and focuses on job creation and economic development in the broadband economy. It uses the "intelligent community" for what others call the wired city, smart community or e-city.

Jiading has a population of 1.2 million and is about 20 kilometers from downtown Shanghai.

"It's industrialization and increasing informatization foundation is solid," Jiading informatization commission deputy director Hong Peijun said yesterday.

The ICF selected Jiading from about 200 cities, towns, villages and metropolitan areas as one of the "Smart 21 Communities of 2007" because it has better informatization infrastructure and remarkable broadband Internet connectivity.

Almost all families in Jiading have a telephone, 72 out of every 100 households owns a computer, and 5 percent of its Internet users have access to broadband. The figures are much higher than the national level.

"The local government has put IT popularity and application on top of its agenda to promote its widely used in e-governance, e-business and corporate and social informatization," Hong said.

More importantly, the authorities have proposed building a "wireless environment" in central Jiading by the end of the year to provide a more efficient world-class service to over 400,000 residents, visitors and businesses.

The service will be extended to all of Jiading's urban areas in 2008, expanding to all its core villages by the next year.

"We saw ICF's nomination as an approval of our achievement," Hong said. Modern districts such as Huangpu and Luwan were not selected for being an integral part of Shanghai.

ICF's website says Jiading is known as an automotive cluster. "Jiading seeks to build better quality life and attract high-tech companies through fiber-to-the-building network, science and technology investment funds and advanced e-government programs."

The community sees Internet bandwidth as an essential utility, vital to economic growth and public services, such as clean water and undisrupted supply of electricity.

Every year, the ICF names 21 winners as Smart 21 Communities, from which the "Top 7" are chosen. The final winner then gets the Intelligent Community Award. This year's final winner will be declared in May.

(China Daily January 9, 2007)