ENG-1993 — Page 373

COMMUNICATIONS AND THE MEDIA

be called, using the International Direct Dialling (IDD) service. Following the agreement reached between the government and Hong Kong Telecom International Limited, an overall eight per cent reduction in IDD charges came into effect on August 1, 1993. Further price reductions, at an annual rate of two per cent, will continue to be made in the next two years. Furthermore, as part of Hong Kong's move to liberalise the telecommunications industry, companies and organisations may also be licensed to provide their own external telecommunications links.

A wide variety of competitive public telecommunications services are, in addition, provided by other companies under Public Non-Exclusive Telecommunications Services (PNETS) and Public Radiocommunications Service (PRS) licences granted by the Telecommunications Authority. Such services include public mobile radio telephone, public mobile data communications, one-way data message, public community repeater, electronic mail (text mail and voice mail), electronic data interchange (EDI), value-added facsimile transmission (for example, text-facsimile conversion), second generation cordless telephone (Telepoint), digital public mobile radio telephone and videotext services. In December, 54 PNETS licences and 13 PRS licences were in force.

Special arrangements have been agreed upon between Hong Kong and the United Kingdom, the United States, Japan and Australia to facilitate the use of international private leased circuits (IPLCs) for data communications and enhanced facsimile services. Under these arrangements, operators of international value-added network services (IVANS) may use IPLCs to carry third party traffic at normal flat-rate tariffs. In Junē 1993, the provision of IVANS was further liberalised to allow operators to extend their services to any territory using IPLCs, as long as the services are within the permitted scope and the arrangement is permissible under the national law of the distant territory. The scope of IVANS permitted in Hong Kong was also expanded to include value-added voice services and managed data network services.

Public mobile radio telephone services (PMRS) continued to expand at a fast pace. During the year, the number of customers increased from 233 500 to 289 500. Hong Kong has the highest per capita rate of mobile phone penetration in the world outside Scandinavia. To cater for future growth in demand and to promote competition in this market, in 1992 the Telecommunications Authority licensed a new operator to provide digital PMRS using the GSM standard. This new digital service was launched in January 1993. In addition, the three existing PMRS operators were in the process of digitalising their analogue systems. One launched its digital system in October 1992 and another started service in July 1993.

Hong Kong also has the highest penetrations in the world, on a per capita basis, for radio paging services. In December, 1 254 000 pagers had been licensed (approximately one in 4.7 people). In addition to the established numeric and alphanumeric paging, there are services conveying messages in Chinese characters. An international radio paging service using the 931 MHz frequency was also introduced in April.

Following the introduction of second generation cordless telephone (CT2) services in 1992 by two licensed operators, a third operator launched its service in March 1993. In December, there were 130 500 CT2 customers.

A Hong Kong-registered company, Asia Satellite Telecommunications Company Limited, operates the regional telecommunications satellite, AsiaSat-1. Following its successful launch in April 1990, AsiaSat-1 offers telecommunications services to the region,

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