1 Gbps symmetric Internet access in Hong Kong

One of the more interesting keynotes at Globalcomm 2006 was by Niq Lai, the CFO of City Telecom in Hong Kong.  For those who are not familiar with communications in Hong Kong, City Telecom is a competitive telephone company founded in 1992.  Their wholly-owned subsidiary, Hong Kong Broadband Network Limited, is the performance leader for Internet access in HK.  They’re focused on making 1 Gbps available and 100 Mbps a commodity.  The monthly subscription is US$31 for 100 Mbps.  The up scale 1 Gbps service is US$216 and the budget 10 Mbps service US$19 per month.  All services are symmetric.

I learned a bit more about regulations in Hong Kong that give City Telecom good access to rights-of-way and I learned their construction cost per home passed.

City Telecom builds all it’s own infrastructure.  Their first target was Hong Kong apartment complexes where 30–story buildings are typical.  They run fiber to the building and through building risers to closets on upper floors where Ethernet switches are deployed, always within 100 meters of the each home.  They use copper cable (Cat 5e) from these Ethernet switches to each home in the building.  Lai said this approach results in a cost of US$300 per home passed.

What about access to rights-of-way and to conduits and riser space within privately owned buildings?  The answer in Hong Kong is that each licensed service provider is considered a “utility” and HK utilities get not only fair and equal access to rights-of-way, but also access to in-building utility space like conduits, risers and utility rooms.  So City Telecom does not have to pay rent to building owners.  They do have to deal with limited space in conduits and risers.  Exactly how this works was not revealed, but access was not the sore subject it is in many parts of the world.

Lai did emphasize City Telecom has no interest in access to unbundled local loops.  Their interest is in equitable access to rights-of-way so they can build and own their own facilities.  If only we were focused on this issue in the US.