ENG-2017 — Page 352

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Media and Communications

External Telecommunications

Forty-three operators were licensed to provide cable-based and/or non-cable-based external telecommunications facilities as at end-2017. Hong Kong has eight submarine cable landing stations and is connected to 11 regional and transcontinental submarine cable systems. It is also connected to the Mainland via 20 overland cables. The total equipped capacity of the external telecommunications facilities in December exceeded 57,955 Gbps.

Satellite Communications

Two Hong Kong companies, APT Satellite Company Limited and Asia Satellite Telecommunications Company Limited, were licensed to operate and provide satellite communications services. As at end-2017, they were operating 11 satellites. Another new satellite is scheduled to be launched in 2018.

Unsolicited Electronic Messages

The Unsolicited Electronic Messages Ordinance regulates the sending of commercial electronic messages, including faxes, pre-recorded telephone messages, short messages and emails. The ordinance requires senders of commercial electronic messages to comply with specific sending rules. There are three 'do-not-call' registers (DNCs) for faxes, short messages and pre-recorded telephone messages respectively. Senders are prohibited from sending commercial electronic messages to DNC-registered numbers without the consent of the registered users. As at end- 2017, more than 2.8 million numbers were registered in the three DNCs.

In 2017, the CA received about 800 reports of suspected contraventions and issued 42 warning letters to senders. A commercial fax sender was fined by the court for non-compliance with an enforcement notice issued by the CA.

Hong Kong works with other jurisdictions to combat spam and unsolicited emails. The OFCA is a member of the Unsolicited Communications Enforcement Network, which combats spam. through international cooperation and the sharing of experience and intelligence.

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, such as issues concerning chargeable mobile content services, mobile bill shock, contractual disputes, operators' fair usage policy, billing information and payment collection.

The industry offers a voluntary Customer Complaint Settlement Scheme, which receives funding and administrative support from the OFCA, to mediate billing disputes in deadlock between consumers and their service providers. In 2017, 67 eligible applications were handled, of which 97 per cent were settled.

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