Doesn't get more scenic than this

It's a postcard, isn't it? This is the tourist attraction in Hangzhou, about a 2-hour train ride from Shanghai. It snakes all around one side of the city. With only 4 million plus people, it's considered a medium-sized city.

Though Hangzhou has attracted mostly tourists to its scenic lakes, it's trying to develop a high-tech park of sorts. A number of tech companies are headquartered or have facilities here, including Nokia and Alibaba. It's the first and only city in China that's totally wired for broadband (at least all the homes in the metro area). And the government foot the bill, bringing in 6,000 workers to wire 600,000 homes in just a few months.

I came out to Hangzhou to meet Yangbin Wang, a former Silicon Valleyite who's now on his third start-up in China (the first was acquired). Yangbin's firm, Vobile, provides a Direct TV/TIVO service -- without the satellite, using the broadband connections. He says it's really popular, especially among older retirees who use the service to play mah jong on their TVs.