Wireless technology to be further promoted in Hong Kong

The Information Infrastructure Advisory Committee today (January 29) endorsed a series of recommendations to further promote the wider adoption of wireless services and technology in Hong Kong.

These recommendations were made by the Ad Hoc Working Group on Promotion of Wireless Services and Technology, which was set up in July 2003 with the tasks of identifying obstacles and ways to overcome them in respect of the adoption of wireless services and technology at the enterprise level; and recommending to the IIAC concrete measures that the Government may take in promoting the adoption of wireless services and technology at the enterprise level.

The working group affirms that there is tremendous market potential for the development of wireless services for adoption by enterprises in Hong Kong. The key is to formulate an overall strategy to facilitate the promotion and development of enterprise applications that employ both IT and wireless technologies.

The major recommendations of the working group include enhancing enterprise awareness of business benefits, capabilities (including the security aspects) and service offerings of wireless solutions; encouraging continuous development of information security technologies solutions, generic products based on open standards, and seamless end-to-end Chinese language-supported IT systems with wireless extensions; continuing to promote wider use of wireless services within the Government, a key IT user, in line with established e-government policy; and fostering closer co-operation between various ICT sectors.

The IIAC agreed that the Information Technology Services Department (ITSD) would play a leading role and coordinate input from the Government, industry, academia, and related organisations to draw up an action plan and implement the recommendations.

The action plan should make good use of the promotional facilities of the Hong Kong Wireless Development Centre and ITSD's Information Technology Solution Centre at the Cyberport, which could be used as an operational base for enhancing the awareness and understanding of wireless services, and to foster industry collaboration in developing wireless solutions.

The report of the working group is available at the website of the Commerce, Industry and Technology Bureau: www.info.gov.hk/citb/ctb.

At today's meeting, IIAC members were also briefed on the results of the 2003 Surveys on IT Usage and Penetration in Households and the Business Sector conducted by the Census and Statistics Department in 2003.

The survey revealed that some 1.48 million households, or 67.5% of all households in Hong Kong, had a PC at home in 2003. Among those households, some 1.31 million (88.8%) had their PC connected to the Internet, representing 60.0% of all households in Hong Kong. This represents a significant increase compared with the situation in 2002 when 62.1% of all households in Hong Kong had a PC at home and 52.5% of all households had their PC at home connected to the Internet.

In the business sector, the percentages of establishments using personal computers (PCs) and having Internet connection remained stable in 2003, being 54.8% and 47.5% respectively. The corresponding percentages in 2002 were 54.5% and 44.2% respectively.

Thursday, January 29, 2004

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