The London-based FLAG Telecom, a unit of Reliance group, has signed a multi-million-dollar deal to supply bandwidth to China Telecom.

China's biggest fixed-line phone company will buy 30 gigabit of capacity from Hong Kong to the U.S. West Coast, the largest single capacity purchase it has ever made, according to China Radio International.

It's one of the largest cash deals in the Asian bandwidth market this year, yet with no details.

China is now the world's second-largest Internet market, with about 87 million users in mid-2004.

According to the Ministry of Information, the base is to grow this year to 111 million, up 37 percent from 2003.

At present, the driving forces for growth are Internet and broadband.

Foreign giants such as Yahoo Inc., eBay Inc. and Google Inc. along with some of China's top players, invested nearly 1 billion dollars in acquisitions in China's Internet market last year.

(CRIENGLISH.com)