HKBN fires up city Wi-fi hot spot spree

Hong Kong Broadband Network (HKBN) plans to spend HK$200 million to expand its Wi-fi coverage across the city to 15,000 hot spots over the next 18 months.

The company's aggressive deployment followed its acquisition this week of Y5Zone, a wholesale provider of wireless broadband network services that operates 6,500 hot spots in Hong Kong and more than 600 in selected cities on the mainland. The combined HKBN-Y5Zone Wi-fi network in Hong Kong is 7,000 hot spots.

"Together, we have a common goal of building a world-class Wi-fi infrastructure for Hong Kong," HKBN chief executive William Yeung Chu-kwong said yesterday. "We want to set the standard in this market, with better bandwidth, advanced technology, wider coverage and improved customer support."

Yeung said HKBN, the city's second-largest fixed-line broadband services provider, was funding this initiative with the proceeds from its US$450 million five-year bond offering last week. The unrated issue, which provides a yield of 5.25 per cent, has helped HKBN pay off bank loans.

"We have enough funding to speed up our Wi-fi roll-out, pursue other projects and get us prepared against any possible price competition in the market," he said.

Billy Yeung (who is not related to William Yeung), the founder and executive director of Y5Zone, will be managing director of the company's new Wi-fi business.