Broadband providers rev up network speed
The speed limits on Hong Kong's information superhighway are rising, with some of the city's big telecommunications players rolling out faster networks and more services linked to optical fibre cables.
PCCW, the city's largest broadband provider, aims to offer various high-speed bandwidth applications, including high-definition television, following the launch of its 1,000-megabits-per-second residential service.
With PCCW's aggressive move to faster broadband services, rival i-Cable Communications is studying plans to further upgrade its cable network infrastructure.
PCCW last week unveiled Netvigator Fibre Direct, an optical fibre broadband service, to residential customers with transmission speeds of between 100 and 1,000 megabits per second. It will charge users between HK$588 and HK$2,188 per month.
PCCW offers a slower broadband service over existing copper telephone lines, based on a technology called asymmetrical digital subscribers line (ADSL).
The new optical fibre service will be bundled with free high-definition television subscriptions, waiving the monthly set-top-box rental and subscription tariff for VOOM, its high-definition television channel.
'We have invested in the optical fibre network for 25 years in Hong Kong and it is the right time now to launch the fibre direct service,' said PCCW group managing director Alex Arena. 'We have so many optical fibres in Hong Kong and are ready to offer the service to most of our users.'
PCCW is bringing so-called passive optical network technology or xPON to the residential market after offering it to commercial customers previously.
Sources said ZTE, Huawei Technologies and UTStacom are helping PCCW roll out the service in Hong Kong.
Users require a single box, including an optical-fibre convertor and high-definition TV set-top box, for the high-speed broadband service. The convertor turns the optical signal into an electrical signal to deliver the broadband signal to computers and other devices.
'Since launching Now TV in 2003, we have connected many residential buildings,' a company source said, adding that over two-thirds of households in the city already have the service. 'In recent years, PCCW has also installed optical fibres in newly-built residential buildings instead of traditional copper wire.'
PCCW is conducting trials on a 1,250-megabits-per-second broadband service and laboratory testd on a 2,500-megabits-per-second service. Its efforts to develop high-speed broadband services had not been given a high priority in previous years as the company focused on offering services based on ADSL technology.
However, when Hong Kong Broadband Network, the fixed-line arm of City Telecom, this month launched a new marketing campaign criticising ADSL technology as too slow, the pressure to act was on.
Ben Tong, executive director of i-Cable Communications, said the company was looking into upgrading its broadband services to support transmission speeds of 25 to 100 megabits per second, from 10 at present.
However, Mr Tong said it was not all about speed. 'Speed is not the unique edge for broadband services. We need content,' he said.
