BEIJING - The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology announced Thursday that China aims to provide faster and cheaper Internet services during the coming four years.

Qin Hai, vice chief of the ministry's informatization promotion department, said the country will expand average bandwidth to at least 20 megabytes per second (MB/s) for urban households by 2015. In the capitals of more developed eastern regions, average bandwidth is expected to reach 100 MB.

Average bandwidth in rural areas will be raised to 4 MB/s, Qin said.

In urban areas, 2- and 4-MB/s bandwidth is still the most common choice for customers.

China Telecom, one of the country's largest Internet service providers, aims to boost its average broadband speed for urban users over the next three to five years while substantially lowering fees, according to Guo Hao, assistant to the company's general manager.

Guo said that by 2015, the company will have more than 100 million customers using fiber optic connections in south China's urban areas.