China has upgraded its first national network for access to Internet with a total investment of 130 million yuan ( about US$15 million), an official in charge of the network said Thursday.

The decade-old network, known as CSTNET, has been modernized as a digitized, broadband and comprehensive network for its one million end-users.

Yan Baoping, director of Computer Network Information Center of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), the country's biggest research institution, said the upgrading increases dramatically the transmission speed of the network, improving on-line research activities for tens of thousands of scientists and researchers at the academy and other end users.

The network was created in April of 1994 by the academy, becoming the first group of Chinese capable of having access to Internet from China.

The network covers about 20 provincial areas through optical fiber and digital circuit.

(Xinhua News Agency May 6, 2004)