Li Ka-shing's telecommunications flagship says it plans to expand its high-speed 4G mobile network in Hong Kong next year when more advanced smartphones become available in the market.
Hutchison Telecommunications Hong Kong, which has spent more than HK$2 billion upgrading its mobile infrastructure over the past five years, plans to establish a dual-mode network that supports the two standards of the 4G wireless broadband technology called long-term evolution (LTE).
Daniel Chung Yiu-man, the chief technology officer for mobile operations at Hutchison Telecoms, said a new network based on the time-division duplex (TDD) LTE standard, which runs on the 2.3-gigahertz band, is expected to be added next year to the nascent 4G business of the company's mobile phone division, 3 Hong Kong.
That infrastructure would complement the company's recently-launched 4G network based on the frequency-division duplex LTE standard, which is on the 2.6GHz band, by adding more subscriber capacity, enhancing coverage and enabling international 4G roaming services.
Hutchison Telecoms' current 4G network covers about 90 per cent of the city, with full coverage slated for next quarter. Tests of the LTE technology on the MTR have also started.
Advanced 4G networks have theoretical internet download speeds of up to 100 megabits per second. The fastest existing 3G networks run at 42Mbps.