KUNMING: Li Weichang could not stop crying when talking of his eldest brother who died of liver cancer eight years ago.

All because they did not have a telephone at that time, said Li.

Li, 40, was born at Pinghe, a remote village in Fapa Town of Dehong Dai and Jingpo Autonomous Prefecture in Southwest China's Yunnan Province.

At an altitude of 2,200 metres, the village looks out upon Myanmar across the Nujiang River.

There is only one cragged road connecting the village with the outside world. When someone suffers from an acute disease, the villagers have to carry the patient on a stretcher and walk for at least five hours before they can get a bus to the nearest hospital 40 kilometres away.

A local prosecutor, Li was about to travel to neighbouring Sichuan Province when he was told his brother had "a serious stomachache."

He immediately contacted a hospital to arrange for a medical examination. It was impossible, however, to inform his family of the arrangement because there was no telephone in the village.

Five weeks had passed before the terminally ill man was finally hospitalized, only to be told it was "too late."

His brother's death deepened Li's worries about his elderly parents and other two brothers at home.

But he was only able to send greetings to his family orally via villagers travelling between their underdeveloped hometown and the city centre where Li worked.

This is impossible to imagine for people in the country's affluent regions where mobile phones are commonplace.

Farmers in the remote Pinghe Village had never dreamed of possessing a telephone until a mobile telecommunications tower was set up in the village on September 4 this year, bringing the isolated village into China's overall mobile telecommunications network.

For the first time in his life, Li heard the laughter of his aged parents via a mobile phone, amid the noise of firecrackers being set off by farmers celebrating the erection of the tower.

"Now I can call my parents whenever I want to enquire about their health, despite living so far from home," said Li, grinning.

More than 200 of the 370 households in the village began to use mobile phones after the tower went into operation.

So far the prefecture has established more than 200 mobile telecommunications stations in its rural areas, covering 92 per cent of the 341 administrative villages.

The introduction of modern telecommunications has brought economic returns to local farmers who rely heavily on the breeding and trading of Mongolian gazelle.

"I can call my relatives and friends outside the mountain and ask about local livestock prices before bargaining with buyers," said 42-year-old Li Huichang with a hearty smile. "In this way, I can sell at higher prices than in the past."

"People now know that information can bring money," he added.

In an effort to alleviate poverty, the province will invest about 500 million yuan (US$61.6 million) to establish over 1,000 mobile telecommunications stations in more than 1,500 administrative villages within two or three years.

At present, 506 villages in the province have their own mobile stations.

Considering the lower income of these farmers, Yunnan Mobile has provided free incoming call services and lowered the charge of outgoing calls, together with providing cheap mobile phone models.

Now farmers can buy a mobile phone for as little as 300 yuan (about US$37).

China has made remarkable progress in narrowing the digital gap in the past 10 years, according to a report of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).

China is the biggest country in terms of both mobile and fixed phone subscribers, which stood at 383 million and 348 million respectively at the end of October.

Experts say there is still huge potential for the development of China's information network in the vast rural areas.

(China Daily 12/21/2005 page14)