Journalists covering the Beijing Olympics are starting to arrive in the capital and complaints over internet speed and access at the Media Press Center (MPC) are already beginning to emerge.

One of China’s promises for hosting the Olympics was free and open media. The usual controls that are put on the internet in the Media Press Center seem to be the same as applied across China or possibly worse if this report is to be believed.

“The Australian Olympic Committee, say the speed is up to 10 times slower than in Australia.” Having experience of using the internet in Australia, it must be crawling.

Director of BOCOG media, Sun Weijia of course denied the internet was slow. Not all 22,000 journalists are yet to arrive in Beijing. Journalists coming from countries with high-speed broadband are likely to be the first people to complain. I am sure that once enough complaints are lodged something will eventually be done.