ENG-2014 — Page 349

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The Media, Communications and Information Technology

Hong Kong's fixed broadband services are competitively priced and very affordable they are offered at a monthly rate as low as around $178, or US$23 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 more than 30,030 Wi-Fi hot spots in about 7,260 areas across the territory.

External Telecommunications Facilities and Services

The external telecommunications facilities market is fully liberalised and by December 2014, 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 2014 totalled over 21,270 Gbps.

Satellite Communications

The two Hong Kong companies licensed to operate and provide satellite communication services were operating nine satellites at the end of 2014. Some of these satellites have been in service for more than 15 years and will soon reach the end of their designed operation lives. The two companies have entered a new investment cycle of launching new satellites for replacement and provision of new business.

Combating Unsolicited Electronic Messages

The Unsolicited Electronic Messages Ordinance (UEMO) regulates the sending of commercial electronic messages (CEMs), including fax, pre-recorded telephone messages, short messages and emails. Under the UEMO, senders of CEMs are required to comply with specific sending rules. There are three 'do-not-call' registers (DNCs) for fax, short messages and pre-recorded telephone messages respectively. Senders are prohibited from sending CEMs to the DNC- registered numbers without the consent of the number's registered user. By 31 December 2014, more than 2.7 million numbers were registered in the three DNCs.

Since the introduction of the UEMO in 2007, the CA has received over 27,000 reports of suspected contraventions, issued 658 warning letters and 24 enforcement notices to senders, and instigated one prosecution for non-compliance with an enforcement notice. The number of reports fell from around 6,100 in 2009 to around 1,900 in 2014, a testimony to the effectiveness of the regulatory regime. The HKSAR Government continues to work with other jurisdictions to combat spam and unsolicited e-mails.

Protection of Consumers

The OFCA works closely with the industry to safeguard consumer interests in using telecommunications services and to resolve any systemic problems that are manifested in consumer complaints. Since 2010, the OFCA and the industry have worked together to adopt a number of initiatives to tackle issues concerning chargeable mobile content services, mobile bill shock, contractual disputes, implementation of fair usage policy by operators, billing information and payment collection, and performance of mobile broadband services.

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