Hong Kong Broadband Network Ltd has announced a ramping up of their efforts to provide high-speed broadband to Hong Kong's Netizens. The firm, known by their acronym HKBN, made the announcement Wednesday at a press conference at Mongkok's most tech-savvy hotel: Langham Place.
'Our slowest service is faster than the incumbent's fastest service,' said Ricky Wong, HKBN chairman. 'We dropped our 10Mbps service as of today"”it's just not fast enough.' HKBN's current range of services start at 25 Mbps and top out at 1Gbps (approximately 1000Mbps).
Wong said that while the company currently uses a mix of copper and fiber optic to serve customers, they were moving towards residential FTTH (Fiber To The Home) as it would provide speeds of 10Gbps in the future if the market demanded it. This bandwidth doesn't come cheaply: the 1Gbps service"”known as FiberHome1000"”is priced at US$215.4 (HK$1,680). If that's too rich for your household, HKBN offers FiberHome100 for US$48.5 (HK$378) and FiberHome200 (an intermediate speed of 200Mbps) for US$88.2 (HK$688).
Wong said that his firm does not lease infrastructure from other providers, meaning that not all homes in Hong Kong are currently passed, but said that HKBN would be installing fiber in low-density housing areas like Tin Hau and Happy Valley on Hong Kong Island in the near future.
The press event included the announcement that 100 users would be selected from 100 different housing estates across Hong Kong Island and the Kowloon Peninsula who would be offered the 100Mbps FTTH broadband service at a discounted price of US$38 (HK$298). 'Their opinions on the service will be actively solicited and used enhance our service before our launch to all our household units in 2008,' said HKBN in a statement.
'Not only does the use of optical fiber allow easy bandwidth upgrade beyond 1Gbps,' said the firm, 'but the reliability of the broadband service will also be enhanced considering the fact that optical fiber devices are passive devices that do not require electricity.'