Is China’s Internet Fast?

The question has come up recently in expat discussions on Twitter, inspired in part by this excellent post by James Fallows. Obviously, everyone knows how slow China’s internet looks when stacked up against its super-fast neighbors. And overseas websites can be slow as molasses (which, I gather, is slow). But what about the Chinese internet, the sites that Chinese netizens use on a daily basis?

There’s no denying that these sites often load much faster than anything hosted overseas. On my 4 Mbps connection — above the national average for broadband speed but only slightly — Baidu loads almost instantaneously. Streaming video on sites like Youku loads pretty quickly, and I almost never have to wait for anything to buffer. Weibo loads in less than two seconds. So the Chinese internet can be pretty fast.

But there are a few seams visible in my (entirely subjective, not at all scientific) experience. Even uber-popular sites like Taobao can be slow to load; on my connection most of the page elements load quite quickly (some may already be cached by my browser), but even after thirty seconds a few small sections of the page still haven’t loaded. This has no practical effect on the site’s functionality, at least for me, so it doesn’t really matter, but it’s worth noting. Similarly, Youku and other streaming sites may load quickly, but the videos they offer are considerably lower definition than their overseas counterparts. On Youtube, for example, you can watch some videos in 1080p. Meanwhile, the last time I checked, even Youku’s “super-HD” setting — the highest resolution setting on the site — isn’t even 720p, let alone 1080. For most users, that probably doesn’t matter. Being a video nerd, I can see the difference pretty easily, but it doesn’t keep me from watching things on Youku. Skype calls, even to other users in China, can suffer from poor quality and occasionally disconnection, but it’s rare these issues seriously disrupt my conversations. Online gaming can be tenuous at times, but generally it’s possible to connect and play even with overseas opponents without too much lag.

So, all in all, China’s internet — or perhaps I should say intranet, really — is pretty fast as long as you’re not too picky. Is being able to watch 1080p HD video nice? Sure. But is not being able to watch video in 1080p going to affect China’s GDP growth? I doubt it. Lots of online experiences are faster/smoother/better abroad then they are here; but the internet here is rarely so slow that it prevents the average Chinese user — who is mostly interested in connecting to domestic sites — from doing what they want. And often, it can actually feel quite fast.

[Image via Shutterstock]