HK broadband use up sharply
There are now more broadband internet surfers in Hong Kong than narrowband users - a sign the city is becoming increasingly technology savvy as consumers prefer lightning-fast downloads to pedestrian dial-up access.
Last year, 51 per cent of all households connected to the internet through broadband. This shored up its No?2 position behind South Korea, which has long led the world in broadband penetration, according to the International Telecommunications Union (ITU).
Hong Kong had more than 1.2 million broadband subscribers in November, up 21 per cent from 2002. The number of narrowband subscribers was 1.09 million.
Driving adoption rates is affordable internet access. According to the ITU, broadband connection fees in Hong Kong are among the lowest in the world.
Internet tariffs for 20 hours of usage as a percentage of income per capita were 0.17 - far cheaper than a score of 0.51 for the US.
Hong Kong people are also a chatty bunch. Last year, mobile users in the city exceeded the population for the first time, thanks to a surge in pre-paid SIM cards.
Mobile users topped 7.07 million in November, gaining almost 14 per cent from the year before.
The number of 2.5G users rose 282 per cent to 650,000, while data volumes grew 470 per cent.
