ENG-2011 — Page 427

Communications, the Media and Information Technology | 367

External Telecommunications Facilities and Services

The external telecommunications facilities market was liberalised fully in 2000, and by December 2011, 42 licensees were authorised to provide cable-based and/or non-cable-based external telecommunications facilities. Hong Kong has six submarine cable landing stations and is connected to nine regional and trans-Pacific submarine cable systems. It is also connected to the Mainland's three overland cable networks. The external telecommunications facilities' total capacity in December 2011 was over 6 494 Gbps.

Satellite Communications

Two Hong Kong companies are licensed to operate and provide satellite communication services. At the end of the year, they were operating 10 satellites. Some of the existing satellites have been in service for more than 15 years and will soon reach the end of their designed operation lives. In November 2011, one of the licensees launched a new satellite to replace an existing satellite due for retirement and has ordered two more satellites scheduled to be launched in 2014. In 2012, the other licensee will also launch a replacement satellite. The two companies have entered a new investment cycle of launching new satellites for replacement and provision of new business.

Combating Unsolicited Electronic Messages (UEMs)

The UEM Ordinance regulates the sending of commercial electronic messages (CEMs), including fax, pre-recorded voice calls, short messages and emails. Under it, senders of CEMs are required to comply with specific rules, governing among other things the provision of accurate sender information and an unsubscribe facility in the message. Three do-not-call registers (DNCs) for fax, short message and pre-recorded telephone message respectively are in force. Senders are prohibited from sending CEMs to the DNC-registered numbers, without the consent of the number's registered user. By December 31, 2011, there

more than 2.31 million registrations in the three DNC registers, with some 677 000 numbers for fax, 581 000 for short messages and 1 058 000 for pre-recorded messages.

Since the introduction of the UEM Ordinance in 2007, the TA had received over 20 000 reports of suspected contraventions and had issued 396 warning letters to senders. The number of reports fell from 6 100 in 2009 to around 3 100 in 2010 and 2 600 in 2011, a testimony to the effectiveness of the Government's regulatory regime.

The HKSAR Government continues to work with other countries and regions, including Australia, South Korea, Japan, the United States, the United Kingdom and the Mainland to combat spam or unsolicited e-mails sent indiscriminately.

Protection of Consumers

The booming mobile telecommunications market, growing number of smart phone users and rapid technological developments in recent years have generated a number of consumer issues, such as service quality, billing and contractual disputes,