Hong Kong to be one of world’s earliest adopters of 5G technology
Officials say licence scheme for next generation broadband services taking shape in city ahead of 2020 introduction
Hong Kong will be one of the world’s earliest adopters of next generation 5G mobile broadband services, which will run 10 times faster than existing high-speed mobile internet when the technology is ready for commercial use in 2020, local officials revealed on Friday.
The Office of the Communications Authority said the city would “grasp” 5G’s benefits after service allocation details were finalised in 2019.
The International Telecommunication Union (ITU), a UN body, will convene the World Radiocommunication Conference in 2019 to decide global allocation of the 5G spectrum. Commercial 5G services are expected to roll out the following year.
China’s chance to lead global innovation may lie with 5G mobile technology development
The current mobile broadband standard, 4G-LTE, is only capable of download speeds of 1 gigabit per second. The 5G standard is expected to have a maximum download rate of 10 gigabits per second and will have significantly less latency, giving people faster load times for content, such as for full, high-definition videos.
Information technology sector legislator Charles Mok said once the 5G spectrum was finalised, it would require major network infrastructure changes, which could take some time to install around the city.
Mok expected the 2019 conference to go smoothly because many vendors and developers were already preparing products for 5G as they had an idea which spectrums would most likely be allocated.
