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Postal Services

 

There are some 140 post offices in the Tibet Autonomous Region, with rural postal routes extending over 80,000 km and air mail routes 650 km. Recent years have seen a steady annual increase in the volume of postal services and telecommunications business. Lhasa maintains express mail services with more than 200 large and medium-sized cities in the country. There are two international postal routes, all of them going to neighboring countries via Zam and Yadong in Xigaze Prefecture.

 

 

Women of the Moinba ethnic group call their relatives who live far away.

 

In 2004, the value of postal services and telecommunications business reached 1.35 billion yuan, an increase of 37.5 percent over the previous year. This includes 1.25 billion yuan of telecommunication business volume, a rise of 40.6 percent. In the year, 4,700 phone lines were added, bringing the total capacity to 303,200 lines.

 

Modern Communications

 

Through years of development, the Lanzhou-Xining-Lhasa optical fiber cable has been installed along with one from Lhasa to Xigaze, Shannan and Nyingchi. Satellite ground stations have also been established in various localities. Nowadays, the Tibet Autonomous Region has formed its trunk transmission network composed of optical fiber cables and satellite ground reception stations that cover the whole region, and a telecommunications network composed of program controlled exchanges, satellite communication, digital communication, mobile communication and other advanced means. In recent years, the autonomous region built the Lhasa Program Controlled Telephone Bureau, the Post and Telecommunications Building, the 900-million cell phone system, a radio paging system covering five prefectures, seven IDR satellite ground stations, 73 VSAT satellite communication stations, 1,841 long-distance telephone lines, and 5,810-terminal automatic telephone exchanges.

 

To date, Lhasa, capital of Tibet, has been incorporated into the international and domestic automatic telephone network. Direct dial telephone service reaches all parts of China and 180 countries and regions in the world. Telex service is also available.

Postal Business Volume

Year

Postal Business Volume10000 Yuan

Letters

10000

Passals

10000 Pieces

Papers and Journals10000 Copies

Year-End Inner City Telephone Subscribers  

Year-End Rural Telephone Subscribers 

1959

99

273

 

3

276

 

1970

151

363

1

2

1007

 

1975

176

534

2

9

1851

66

1980

457

576

6

23

3923

529

1985

813

657

5

30

5981

280

1990

1713

792

12

25

9056

307

1995

5740

1653

16

22

26230

300

2000

38431

1349

31

40

105005

620

2001

68431

926

31

20

144852

4713

2002

74549

932

35

24

187954

9492

2003

98192

637

35

22

247661

9094

Note: The prior-1980 volume of postal business was calculated according to the constant price in1970; the 1981-1990 volume to the 1980 constant price; and the post-1990 volume to the 1990 price.

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