XN000022-1996-05-15 — Page 35

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Reply:

(c)

(d)

Mr President,

(a)

(b)

(c)

(d)

whether the Government has any information on the number of telephone lines used for other value-added services, and its proportion in the total number of telephone lines; and

whether the existing optical-fibre network can cope with the load when all telephone lines are used for other value-added services; if not, what the future development plan for the optical-fibre network is?

In March 1996, the Hong Kong Telephone Company network consisted of 3.3m lines, of which about 40,000 are provided with fibre-optic connections from the local exchange. In addition, 92% of the connections between one exchange and another are using fibre-optics.

The telephone network does not distinguish between telephonic and non- telephonic messages passing through the network. We do not have data indicating the proportion of the messages which are telephonic.

Some indicative figures only on value-added traffic are available. During April 1994 to March 1995, the total both way occupancy traffic (i.e. incoming and outgoing) passing through the telephone network amounted to about 51,300 million minutes, of which local calls were estimated to account for some 45,210 million minutes, international calls 3,450 million minutes and other identifiable types of traffic (such as licensed public value-added services) 2,640 million minutes. 45,210 million minutes of local calls include telephonic and non- telephonic (such as fax and computer communications) usage. Separate breakdowns on telephonic and non-telephonic traffic are not available.

The

The existing network is designed to carry the present normal traffic levels, including the current level of value-added traffic. A quality of service standard is imposed on HKTC to ensure that 99% of the calls in the busiest hour are successfully connected. If there is in future a significant increase in the volume of value-added traffic, HKTC might need to make additional investment in switching and other network elements in order to carry such additional traffic and to maintain the current grade of service. The three new Fixed Telecommunication Network Service Licensees are also constructing their own optical fibre backbone networks which will be able, when completed, to share some of the traffic loading of the HKTC network.

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