Guess how many Internet users China had by last June.

We’ll put it this way -- it equals the populations of the U.S., Canada and Germany combined. You could throw in New Zealand and not notice. Out of the 2.3 billion users worldwide one-quarter are in China.

Yes, we’re talking 485 million users. Nearly half a billion. Some people think that could climb as high as 718 million by 2013 -- and we’re talking broadband connections for the majority of Internet users today, too. Wireless access, such as from smartphones, has shot from negligible usage to 277 million people accessing the Internet via cell phones in just a few years.

A recent Webinar presented by TMC (News - Alert) noted that while the penetration rate for Internet in China is 38 percent, higher than the Asian average but well below the over 70 percent in the United States, that number will no doubt grow more rapidly. Andy Zhang of China Telecom (News - Alert) Americas said that China Telecom is the largest Internet content provider for this market, with 2.3 million Chinese Web sites, for 70 percent of the market, and “the largest broadband access provider for the Chinese market.”

China Telecom established an overseas POP to help deal with all this in Los Angeles in 2000. Their international Internet bandwidth usage has exploded since then -- remember, there wasn’t even any wireless access to worry about then. How robust is China-USA international Internet bandwidth today? Best estimates place it around 450G, which just ten years ago would have been considered an astronomical figure.

China Telecom Americas is the China Telecom subsidiary offering Internet service to the global market. Lately the China Access and Global Transit Internet product offered by China Telecom is an interesting option for reaching the eyeballs in China’s burgeoning Internet market.

The TMC Webinar explored this topic in greater detail.