All villages in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, including those in the most remote areas, now have access to telephones, local authorities said.

Connecting telephones to every village in the vast and sparsely populated region is no easy job, said Ao Daming, head of the region's telecommunication administration.

The region, China's third largest, covers an area of 1.18 million square kilometers and has only 20 people for every square kilometer.

Since the "telephone for all villages" campaign was launched in 2004, 3,556 villages have been connected to the phone grid. In all 13,120 villages in the region now have access to telephones, Ao said.

Fiver major telecom operators including China Netcom and China Mobile took part in the campaign.

(Xinhua News Agency February 11, 2006)