New World Mobility plans to spend $1.5 billion to upgrade its network coverage

Mobile telephone company New World Mobility plans to spend $1.5 billion in the next two to three years to upgrade its network coverage and prepare for the commercial roll-out of next-generation technology.

New World chief executive Albert Wong said so-called third-generation mobile phone networks could be launched commercially in Hong Kong by 2002, replacing digital networks.

'We will begin to see the emergence of third-generation networks within two to three years,' he said.

Mr Wong believes the Government could begin calling for third-generation applications as early as next year.

Third-generation networks have much greater capacity to transfer data than present-day digital cellular networks.

Transfer speeds will be equivalent to a T1 line, or 1.544 MBps (megabits per second), compared with present cellular capacity of 14.4 KBps (kilobits bits per second).