ENG-2013 — Page 354

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The Media, Communications and Information Technology

providing 103 telephone fixed-lines per 100 households, one of the highest in the world. As a result of the government's policy to promote facility-based competition in the local fixed services market, 86.8 per cent and 77.8 per cent of residential households enjoyed a choice of at least two or three self-built local fixed customer access networks respectively as at March 2013.

Fixed Broadband Services

Hong Kong has one of the world's most advanced fixed broadband network infrastructures and a high household fixed broadband penetration rate of 83.2 per cent. According to the 'State of the Internet 2nd Quarter, 2013 Report' published by internet content delivery provider Akamai in October 2013, Hong Kong has the world's fastest broadband, with an average peak connection speed of 65.1 Mbps.

Hong Kong comes third in global ranking in deploying an optical fibre access network, according to information published in December 2013 by the Fibre-to-the-Home Council. As at December 2013, the OFCA's voluntary building registration scheme recorded about 13,600 fibre-to-the-building or fibre-to-the-home residential buildings, covering about 83 per cent of Hong Kong households. The corresponding number of non-residential buildings registered under the scheme was over 1,300.

Hong Kong's fixed broadband services are competitively-priced and very affordable they are offered at a monthly rate as low as around $220, or US$28 for broadband internet access service at a speed up to 1Gbps.

Hong Kong is also at the forefront in the provision of public Wi-Fi service. At the end of the year, there were 20,307 Wi-Fi hot spots in about 6,615 areas across the territory.

Mobile TV Services

Broadcast-type mobile TV service was launched in February 2012. Mobile TV service offers a wider choice of high quality TV programmes and strengthens Hong Kong's status as a world- class wireless city.

Migration to the Next Generation Network

The Next Generation Network (NGN) embraces multiple services such as voice, data and multi- media delivered over a single Internet Protocol-based platform. To facilitate the industry's smooth migration to NGN, the OFCA has formed a working group with the stakeholders to discuss and tackle issues relating to NGN.

External Telecommunications Facilities and Services

The external telecommunications' facilities market was liberalised fully in 2000, and by December 2013, 41 licensees were authorised to provide cable-based and/or non-cable-based external telecommunications facilities. Hong Kong has seven 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 equipped capacity of the external telecommunications facilities in December 2013 totalled over 13,589 Gbps.

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