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BEIJING - CHINA'S telecom industry faces a huge bill after the worst winter in decades, with millions of users cut off and thousands of kilometres of phone lines damaged, state media said on Sunday.
Preliminary statistics from the Ministry of Information Industry showed the massive snow falls and freezing temperatures have led to losses of 1.1 billion yuan (S$213 million), the Xinhua news agency reported.
Although the weather has turned for the better, 10 million mobile and fixed-line subscribers were still unable to use their phones as of late on Friday, according to the agency.
A total of 10,000 mobile phone base stations remain out of service, and for fixed-line services, 150,000 poles have collapsed while 16,000 kilometres of lines have been damaged, Xinhua said.
It reported that 80,000 telecom industry workers had fanned out across the country to seek to restore services as Lunar New Year, the most important holiday of the year, added to the demand for telecom services.
China had 547 million mobile phone subscribers and 365 million users of fixed-line services at the end of last year, according to government data. -- AFP
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