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Communications, the Media and Information Technology
was established under the Communications Authority Ordinance on 1 April 2012 as an independent statutory regulator for the entire electronic communications sector. The CA comprises 10 non-officials from various sectors of the community and two public officers. As a unified regulatory body conferred with the functions previously performed by its predecessors, the former Broadcasting Authority and Telecommunications Authority, the CA's role is to regulate the telecommunications and broadcasting industries in Hong Kong in accordance with the Broadcasting Ordinance, the Telecommunications Ordinance, the Unsolicited Electronic Messages Ordinance, the Communications Authority Ordinance, and the Broadcasting (Miscellaneous Provisions) Ordinance.
The Office of the Communications Authority (OFCA) (the CA's executive arm and secretariat) assists the CA in administering and enforcing the relevant ordinances governing the broadcasting and telecommunications sectors.
Telecommunications
The Government's telecommunications policy is to facilitate the development of the telecommunications industry and enhance Hong Kong's position as the region's telecommunications hub.
Hong Kong's telecommunications markets are fully liberalised. Being one of the most competitive and affordable markets for telecommunications services in the world, keen competition has benefited consumers in terms of prices, service quality and choices. This demonstrates the success of the city's pro-competition policy and pro-market approach, which enables consumers and business users in Hong Kong to enjoy high quality telecommunications services at affordable prices.
Mobile Communications Services
Five mobile operators provide second generation (2G), third generation (3G) and fourth generation (4G) services in the city. As at December 2012, there were over 16.39 million subscribers to mobile communications services. This represents a population penetration of 228.5 per cent, one of the highest in the world. The number of 3G/4G users also continued to rise and reached 9.38 million in December 2012.
Mobile data services are available at downlink speeds of up to 100 Mbps using Long Term Evolution (LTE) technology.
With the increasing popularity of smart phones, the monthly mobile data usage surged to 7,674 Terabytes (7,674,493 Gigabytes) in December 2012, representing 1.86 times and 4.15 times the monthly usage over the same period in 2011 and 2010 respectively. On average, each 2.5G/3G/4G mobile user used 762.6 Mbytes per month.
To meet the booming demand for mobile data services and to sustain market growth, the OFCA successfully conducted an auction to assign 90 MHz of frequency spectrum in the 2.3 GHz band in February 2012. The OFCA will auction 50 MHz of frequency spectrum in the 2.5-2.6 GHz band in the first quarter of 2013.
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