Through the end of 2004, China had a cable backbone of 3.7 million kilometers, representing an investment of over 100 billion yuan (US$12.3 billion). However, its usage rate stood at just 20% overall, and 30% in urban areas. Numbers for transmission towers were similar. Part of the redundancy problem arises from competition between the dominant operator in an area and weaker companies trying to gain a foothold in the market. Without infrastructure of their own, it is hard for them to compete, so they run additional lines that are unnecessary from a general perspective. And because the resource disparity is so large, the smaller operators essentially have no chance at beating the dominant carriers at their own game, so the additional lines are doubly redundant.