ENG-2007 — Page 413

Communications, the Media and Information Technology | 349

In general, a licensee may use any technology for service provisioning provided that the technology conforms to open and non-proprietary standards and for which there is a reasonable choice of consumer equipment in the market.

To enable visitors to and the residents in Hong Kong to enjoy advanced CDMA mobile and roaming services, the Government released spectrum in 850 MHz band for provision of CDMA 2000 services through open auction in October 2007. CDMA 2000 standard is one of the major mobile communication standards widely used in the world, including the Mainland, Korea, Japan and US, and is capable of providing high-speed data services. Provision of CDMA 2000 services in Hong Kong will strengthen Hong Kong's strategic position as a world city and the gateway between Mainland China and the world. PCCW-HKT Limited, the successful bidder, is required to roll out the CDMA 2000 services in November 2008.

External Telecommunications Services

The external telecommunications service market had been fully liberalised since. 1999. At year-end, there were 24 external fixed carrier licensees providing cable- based external telecommunications facilities and another six providing non-cable- based external telecommunications facilities. Competition in the external telecommunications facilities and services markets have led to a significant drop in International Direct Dialling (IDD) call rates. According to an IDD rate survey conducted in mid-2007 by OFTA, the average IDD rate has fallen by 69 per cent from 2001 to 2006 but the total annual traffic had increased by 62 per cent within the same period.

Broadband and Internet Access Services

The number of broadband accounts increased significantly during the year to 1 880 000, which represented a household penetration rate of 76.4 per cent and population penetration rate of 27 per cent. According to reports issued by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), Hong Kong ranked second in Asia in 2006 in terms of broadband population penetration.

In addition, local operators have been actively rolling out broadband facilities for providing high bandwidth services to customers. According to a recent report of the Fibre-to-the-Home Councils of the Asia Pacific, Europe and North America, Hong Kong is the world leader in the coverage of fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) or fibre-to-the- building (FTTB) networks with a household penetration of 21.2 per cent. At year-end, there were three fixed carriers offering FTTH services with data transmission speed of up to 1 000 Mbps.

There was a rapid and massive rollout of wireless local area networks in 2007. At year-end, there were 24 class licensees and five fixed carrier licensees authorised to offer public Wi-Fi services. With the installation of over 5 000 Wi-Fi hot spots at around 3 100 locations in the territory, Hong Kong is at the forefront of the world in the provision of public Wi-Fi service. The Government has launched the Government Wi-Fi Programme which aims to provide free Wi-Fi wireless broadband internet services to the public. The programme will progressively roll out free Wi-Fi service at some 350 government premises with high public patronage between March 2008