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Networking IT

1Gbps Broadband Service for Hong Kong 221

Posted by Zonk from the zoom! dept.
Limax Maximus writes "Hong Kong is planning to launch a 1Gbps broadband home service. Although the idea of using shared infrastructure is nothing new for TV/phone/data this appears to be the first to do this over IP at such high speed. The cost is high - 215 USD a month. Per megabit, however, this is a very cheap service. This kind of solution only really works in town blocks where cat5 cabling is a realistic option."
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1Gbps Broadband Service for Hong Kong More

1Gbps Broadband Service for Hong Kong

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  • Please let me know where I can get this gigabit service in the US, so I can buy a few lines and open a data center.
    • I'm sick of Americans complaining about being behind. In australia the standard internet conenction is 512kb/s. The advertised plans have download limits of 200 meg. There is no such thing as "unlimited" in Australian Technology. Stop complaining, you are tonnes better than us.
    • The whole reason we're "Behind" is because we have to update old technology, whereas most of the Aisan countries weren't as technologically advanced as we were until recently. Then they could go on making new technology, whereas we have to spend money to replace older stuff.

      • Re:Ok, since people insist America isn't "behind" (Score:5, Insightful)

        by AtariAmarok ( 451306 ) on Sunday April 24, 2005 @08:07AM (#12328385)
        "The whole reason we're "Behind" is because we have to update old technology, whereas most of the Aisan countries weren't as technologically advanced as we were until recently. Then they could go on making new technology, whereas we have to spend money to replace older stuff."

        I don't "get it". How does "not having anything in the first place" make it cheaper and easier? I'd guess that there would be no difference either way, and it might be a little easier to upgrade in the US if you have cable conduits all over the cities and wiring in the house for it.

        • you shouldn't get that argument, it has no real basis. It is usually easier to upgrade from the old, especially when you can use certain things that are still in place. It is also easier because you usually have a workforce with experience in doing this sort of stuff and therefore are better prepared for the problems they will face.

          More realistically, not enough Americans demand that bandwidth. It's like tv on cell phones. We hardly have it and it's common in Japan. Is this bad thing? of course not.
          • If I had to pick five words to describe the cell market in the US, they would be "horrible form of market failure." This is because 1) the only decisive factor for choosing a cell provider for most people is coverage and reception, 2) starting a new network with competitive coverage is so expensive it's essentially impossible.

            The upshot is, the three or four national competitors who can afford to stay in the game compete on coverage, and cooperate on shafting their customers in every way possible. A prime
            • Locking cell phones should be outlawed in the US, no question. It's a completely artificial barrier whose only purpose is to make switching to different providers more expensive for consumers without giving them any benefit at all.

        • Re:Ok, since people insist America isn't "behind" (Score:2, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward
          I'd guess that there would be no difference either way, and it might be a little easier to upgrade in the US if you have cable conduits all over the cities and wiring in the house for it.

          Thats one of the problems in America. Stupid politicians and stupider companies. Until recently we have no "cable conduits" in most of the cities here. Ever noticed how often roads get ripped up to lay cable underneath them? Thats because until the people started complaining enough, it wasn't enough of an issue to jus
        • I don't "get it". How does "not having anything in the first place" make it cheaper and easier?

          One word: Politics.

          Government, Corporate, Local... It's all the same in that aspect -- it slows everything the hell down.
        • I don't "get it". How does "not having anything in the first place" make it cheaper and easier? I'd guess that there would be no difference either way, and it might be a little easier to upgrade in the US if you have cable conduits all over the cities and wiring in the house for it.

          The reason you don't "get it" is because you don't realize the impact of captalist economies coupled with lack of geographical world knowledge. Market economies work as getting a better product to the people at lower prices.

        • If i already have expensive infrastructure in place which delivers 1MBPs, i will think very long and hard about upgrading to 100MBPs. How many users will I gain? 1MBPs might just be good enough. I made an investment in this old infrastructure and the longer i can keep it running, the better my return.

          If, on the other hand, I have no infrastructure, then I can put in the latest technology for the exact same price an older tech would cost me, or just a little bit more. In this case, it's more economical to p
        • Here's my theory:
          In order to install new cabling in the ground or on telephone poles requires an immense amount of paper work, regulation, and other beuracracies. Also include the cost of american labor to dig trenches and things start looking pretty unreasonable.

          My guess is maybe the environment is different in asian countries to allow these rapid upgrades of infrastructure.
    • Seeing as how most internet backbones are OC-1 or OC-3 (45,135mbps), having the extra bandwidth don't do jack for download/upload speeds and pingtimes. You might as well stick with (at most) the 100mbps that Japan has. The only thing this extra bandiwdth is good for, is buying TV from your internet provider.

    • Re:Ok, since people insist America isn't "behind" (Score:4, Informative)

      by Regul8or ( 603030 ) on Sunday April 24, 2005 @10:19AM (#12329039)
      The only parts of America that are behind are the areas with monopolistic corporations that have no motivation to offer a more powerful service. In East Wenatchee, WA, the Douglas County Public Utilities District has laid fiber to the demarc( yes, to each and single house) and is offering 100 mbps symmetrical fiber internet service for $39.95/month. http://www.localtelonline.com/dbf.htm The PUD can get away with trampling all over inferior competing providers without getting sued by Charter and Verizon because the city isn't large enough to fight over.
      • Look at the page. If you exceed 100 gigabits in transfer (combo of upstream and downstream) a month, you'll be charged 40 cents a gigabit in overages.

        Once you factor in overhead for various transmission protocols, that 100 gigabits is about 10.5-11.5 gigabytes of actual data. Every e-mail you send out is deducted from that. Every e-mail you receive is deducted from that. Every graphic on every web page. Every advertisement including a streaming video...

        Now, the average household that doesn't do fil

    • I don't know about you but I'm moving to Hong Kong

  • Can neighbors share/resell. (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    This is a great & affordable plan for even the non-wealthy if communiies can share it

  • shouldnt it be (Score:3, Interesting)

    by FidelCatsro ( 861135 ) <fidelcatsro@gmaDALIil.com minus painter> on Sunday April 24, 2005 @07:52AM (#12328324) Journal
    . This kind of solution only really works in town blocks where cat5 cabling is a realistic option."
    Shouldnt that be Cat6 cabling

    • Re:shouldnt it be (Score:5, Insightful)

      by SithGod ( 810139 ) <dcanders@umich.edu> on Sunday April 24, 2005 @07:54AM (#12328336) Homepage Journal
      Actually you can run 1 Gb/s over Cat5e cabling. Cat6 is just better suited for it
    • Fibre, dude, fibre... There is nothing else that can handle this load.
    • No, but it should be Cat5E, not Cat5.

      Cat 6 isn't actually useful for anything yet, as you can do it all with 5E. The installation cost of 6 is higher as well as it has to be handled more carefully.. you have to use velcro straps instead of cable ties for example.

  • HKBN BB100 (Score:4, Insightful)

    by 0x461FAB0BD7D2 ( 812236 ) on Sunday April 24, 2005 @07:52AM (#12328325) Journal
    They are also offering BB100, a 100Mbps service, that is similar to the price of regular ADSL in Hong Kong.

    More information here: http://bb100.hkbn.net/BB100/index_e.htm [hkbn.net]

  • what for ...? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by xlyz ( 695304 )

    really: what the use of such a broad band from a normal user???
    • A lot of Hong Kongers, especially the adolescents, are file-sharers, and are quite fed up with other ISPs in the region, especially the two leading ISPs, Netvigator and HK Cable.

      Also, for tech-related services, adolescents in the households tend to be the decision-makers.

    • from TFA (Score:3, Insightful)

      by pasokon ( 829164 )

      ...enables the carrier to converge its legacy voice and data services and a new pay-TV service into a single platform, and at the same time offer Layer 2 and 3 IP services using Resilient Packet Ring (RPR)-ready ML Series line cards. The network enables HKBN to deliver up to 200 digital pay-TV channels via MPEG-2 at 4.5 Mbps to 10 Mbps with DVD visual quality. Its service also features interactive pay-TV elements and enables PC or TV connection with the aid of a set-top box.

      DVD-quality digital broadcasts

    • Re:what for ...? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by timeOday ( 582209 )
      really: what the use of such a broad band from a normal user???
      Video on demand.

      The only reason the Internet looks so different from television today is because it lacks bandwidth.


      • dvd quality requires 1/100 of that bandwidth
        hdtv quality 1/20

        so again ... what for??
        • Being hooked up to a gigabit network doesn't mean you get it all to yourself. I can't imagine there is really 1 gigabit of dedicated bandwidth for each individual customer.

          Anyways, it would be interesting if this gave rise to a *true* "network PC," where the local PC is just a high-res television with a keyboard and mouse. You could even play 3d games without a special graphics adapter if the rendering were done remotely. Now that would eat up some bandwidth!

        • so again ... what for??

          So that the SO can watch her soppy movie on the bigscreen in the bedroom, while I watch the fuzeball in the computer-room while downloading Service Pack 2 and still get good enough pings to play HL2 at the same time?

          (Note: the above is a simulation; none of those apply to me... I am single, hate football, don't do Windows, and don't play PC games... so if I messed something up, please substitute the nearest applicable idea.)
        • Geez, what's so bad about developing the requirement after the possibility is there?

          I had a small home network with a small dumb switch. It was kinda ugly since I had to run PPPoE over the switch which sucks. So I thought, hmm, a smarter switch with VLAN-support and more ports would be cool. I didn't need the new switch, since everything "worked" as it was. Now that I have it I find myself doing more complicated VLAN stuff and learning more about network topologies etc.

          Open your mind a bit.

  • Firewall of China? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by AtariAmarok ( 451306 )
    I am assuming that Hong Kong is subject to the same 'Net censorship that the rest of mainland China is? Or is this true?

    • Re:Firewall of China? (Score:5, Informative)

      by FidelCatsro ( 861135 ) <fidelcatsro@gmaDALIil.com minus painter> on Sunday April 24, 2005 @07:55AM (#12328340) Journal
      Hong-kong has been kept in a sort of Capitalist sand-box in many ways , so it does not suffer the same restrictions as the rest of china. iirc

      • A communist sandbox? (Score:5, Funny)

        by AtariAmarok ( 451306 ) on Sunday April 24, 2005 @08:02AM (#12328367)
        "Hong-kong has been kept in a sort of Capitalist sand-box in many ways "

        Is that the opposite of a Communist Sandbox? Remember the old joke: "What do you get if you bring communism to the Sahara Desert? Well, at first, nothing. Then, after 10 years, you get a shortage of sand."

        • Wooosh straight over my head ;) , we never got any Anti-communist jokes in my neck of the woods hee.I seem to remember one ,about Lennin and mcarthy and when they will release a follow up to the white album.
        • For those not from Russia:
          The colloquial form of referring to sugar powder in
          Russia is "sand", so when the above joke works
          much better in Russian. It arose when there were
          shortages of sugar in late eighties.
          The full joke goes: "... 70 years of mirages and then
          rationing of sand."

    • Re:Firewall of China? (Score:5, Informative)

      by 0x461FAB0BD7D2 ( 812236 ) on Sunday April 24, 2005 @07:58AM (#12328352) Journal
      No, our net access is not regulated or monitored by China. China has to maintain some distance from us until 2047, and any action that reeks of Beijing's hand would be met with massive resistance in HK.

      Hong Kongers love their market economy and freedoms, often citing it as an example of why HK is a better place to live and work than other rivals in the region like Singapore and Shanghai.

      • China has to maintain some distance from us until 2047

        You sure about that? Everything I read indicates that China may not be so happy with that idea.

        • Re:Firewall of China? (Score:5, Informative)

          by 0x461FAB0BD7D2 ( 812236 ) on Sunday April 24, 2005 @08:12AM (#12328402) Journal
          It is trying to narrow that gap, surely.

          However, by law it can't meddle all that much with Hong Kong's affairs, at least not without violating their agreement with the British and pissing off Hong Kong's 7 million people (and many in China who view Hong Kong as a democratic beacon of hope).

          After a massive protest in HK, China decided to lay off enforcing Article 23, which dealt with subversion. It also lead, indirectly, to the Chief Executive (our leader) getting sacked. The debate now is when (not if) Hong Kong will be able to elect its own leaders.

          There's a large voice of dissent in Washington against China, especially with their yuan policy. I suppose that may be the reason the US sees things over here in a very negative light.
      • Hong Kongers love their market economy and freedoms, often citing it as an example of why HK is a better place to live and work than other rivals in the region like Singapore and Shanghai.

        Yes. In fact Hong Kong is ranked #1 as the freest economy in the world. Singapore is #2. Strangely enough the USA is only ranked #12.

        Source: 2005 Index of Economic Freedom [heritage.org]

    • Re:Firewall of China? (Score:3, Informative)

      by 1u3hr ( 530656 )
      I am assuming that Hong Kong is subject to the same 'Net censorship that the rest of mainland China is? Or is this true?

      No we're not. I can download as much porn, and read as much American/Falun Gong/Tibetan propaganda as I like. They do censor nipples on TV, but I gather you get that too.

  • Faster, but for what? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Dancin_Santa ( 265275 ) <DancinSanta@gmail.com> on Sunday April 24, 2005 @07:54AM (#12328330) Journal
    While per megabyte/second it seems very cheap, you have to consider what your internet usage actually is. If you're only using the internet for an hour or two a day (and who among us doesn't?), then this faster speed internet is a lot more expensive than normal slower service. You're paying more, but not using more. That's not a better value, that's getting ripped off.

    Even if you had this faster pipe, what would you do with it? Download more porn? Upload more MP3s?

    I see the benefit for a fatter pipe for businesses who need to serve up large amounts of data, but for the average user, faster does very little. It's nothing like the jump from dialup to broadband. We are as fast as we need to be. Page downloads are already instantaneous, how can you seriously improve over instantaneous.
  • what can you actually do with it apart from share files between neighbours/towns? I can't imagine most normal websites being able to keep up with a 1Gbps connection, and surely the PC rendering webpages/other content becomes the bottleneck?

    I do suppose the question really is: what's the speed of the backbone between Hong Kong and the rest of the world, and what's the contention going to be like once people start taking this up?

    • P2P (Score:4, Insightful)

      by MarkByers ( 770551 ) on Sunday April 24, 2005 @08:22AM (#12328437) Homepage Journal
      With peer-to-peer, the more popular a download is, the faster it can be downloaded. The limit is the speed of the internet connections of those trading file pieces. There is no central bottleneck. With a few high speed connections uploading, everyone's downloads will be faster.

      • With peer-to-peer, the more popular a download is, the faster it can be downloaded. The limit is the speed of the internet connections of those trading file pieces. There is no central bottleneck. With a few high speed connections uploading, everyone's downloads will be faster.

        That's not really true.

        Given your reference to "file pieces", I'm assuming you're talking about BitTtorrent. In which case, saying that "the more popular a download is, the faster it can be downloaded" is misleading at best. The

  • Why is this so cheap? (Score:5, Informative)

    by neomage86 ( 690331 ) on Sunday April 24, 2005 @07:56AM (#12328341)
    1 gbps is more bandwidth than an OC-48, which run for about 700,000 US dollars/month. I understand that consumers will only use a tiny fraction of their allocated bandwidth, and they don't demand the level of stability that an enterprise line needs. Still, you've got to figure that the ISP need to dedicate at least 50mbps of bandwidth to each customer (approx a DS3), and that would still be about $15,000 a month.

    • Re:Why is this so cheap? (Score:5, Informative)

      by xstein ( 578798 ) on Sunday April 24, 2005 @08:21AM (#12328435)
      Not so.

      Read the fine print. Overseas bandwidth is capped at 20mbits. [ctinets.com] (sorry for chinese language) It's only local traffic that will run at 1Gps, and that costs them nothing as they own all the fibre.
    • It's cheap, because bandwidth is all a game of numbers/averages. They have a potential 800,000 customers - that's close to US$2M/mo revenue. That's a healthy mark-up over cost although their bandwidth isn't their only cost, infrastructure and support would also add considerably to their monthly expenses.

      Keep it in perspective too. A gig sounds a lot, it's not. Feeding only 1,000 customers guarantees them only 1Mbps each. Make that 10,000, they're only guaranteed 100kbps each. Of course, they'd only get such

    • and that would still be about $15,000 a month.

      what the hell kinda crack are you smoking? I just had a DS3 from UUNet pulled into my office for feeding a wireless ISP I'm starting on June 1, and it's a flat $4,000/mo, including loop charges.
    • What's more than the cheapness of this offering is the inexpensive "lower-bandwidth" offerings (all of which are much less than my $45/mo comcast 4Mbs/384kbs):

      HKBN Premium bb1000 service is being offered on the same metro Ethernet infrastructure that delivers the company's Mass Market bb100 (symmetric 100 Mbps for US$34/month) and Entry Point bb10 (symmetric 10 Mbps for US$16/month) services. http://www.ctinets.com/

      I live near a large chinese community, and I think the reason it's so low is that Chinese ar

    • 1 gbps is more bandwidth than an OC-48, which run for about 700,000 US dollars/month.

      Yes, and DSL is as fast or faster than a T-1 line, while costing about 1/10th as much... They haven't been having any problems selling dedicated T-1 lines, have they?

      A big company needs real reliability, not just a best-effort delivery system. Maybe start-ups and small/home offices can go with the cheaper options, but this really won't be cutting much into anyone's profits.

  • This already exists in Sweden. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by pomac ( 159163 ) <ian.kumlien@gmaiDALIl.com minus painter> on Sunday April 24, 2005 @07:56AM (#12328343) Homepage
    In sweden www.bredband2.se offers 1 Gbit connections for 118,60 USD. This is without limits.

    For more information and so forth (in swedish) see www.labs2.se
    • Sweeden has for a long time been in the lead for Broadband connections (atleast in europe and im fairly sure the only competitor to the supremacy has been japan till today), I know atleast 3 people who are on an 100Mbit pipe from bredband , It quite literaly puts the rest of the world to shame in terms of price and capacity and has done for years.

      If these companys can afford to do this in sweeden , then i would love to hear the excuses of the companys in other lands , for example why you pay on average abo

  • Conquer Taiwan (Score:4, Funny)

    by AtariAmarok ( 451306 ) on Sunday April 24, 2005 @08:00AM (#12328357)
    If China wants to add Taiwan to its territory, why not entice them with offers of free or cheap broadband? This is sure to win more hearts than the current line which is "We'll bomb you to bits and kill you all if you acknowledge the obvious fact that you've been an independent country for 50 years."
    • Why doesn't China entice Taiwanese with special offers?

      Because the Taiwanese block spam from China too.

      • Re:Conquer Taiwan (Score:5, Funny)

        by AtariAmarok ( 451306 ) on Sunday April 24, 2005 @08:10AM (#12328397)
        "Why doesn't China entice Taiwanese with special offers? Because the Taiwanese block spam from China too."

        Which leaves those Taiwanese to shake their heads in envy as they look across the Straights of Formosa to China, where they see the men standing on the shore taunting them by waving their prodigious giant penises and making 1/2 km jumps with their super HGH-herb-enhanced powers. They say to themselves "See? If we could get Chinese spam, we'd be just like that!"

  • If I'm going to be running network cable all over a building, I want something that'll last a bit longer than twisted pair copper. If the users want to drop back down to copper on their end then fine but I don't fancy having to re-cable every 5-10 years just to keep up.

  • For only another $15 a month you could pick up a new computer from Sham Shui Po, they have AMD Semprons 2200's and Intel Celeron 1.8 Ghz computers for $1800. But you'll be lucky to find good quality cat 5, before searching for cat 5e or cat 6.

    Hopefully with this bandwidth they will be able to launch HDTV service, its quite sad seeing all the big plasma and LCD TV's in stores like Fortress and broadway but only a regular TV signal.

  • Thanks to piracy (Score:2, Interesting)

    by vitalyb ( 752663 )
    Now just everyone pause and think. What would people do with these 1gbit streams if there was no (illegal) downloadable content?

    Sure legal content (without DRM) is also an option but since one is not available right now, we have to rely on piracy to increase the demand for bandwidth.

    • Re:Thanks to piracy (Score:3, Informative)

      by yabos ( 719499 )
      FTA "Cisco's ONS 15454 MSPP enables the carrier to converge its legacy voice and data services and a new pay-TV service into a single platform, and at the same time offer Layer 2 and 3 IP services using Resilient Packet Ring (RPR)-ready ML Series line cards. The network enables HKBN to deliver up to 200 digital pay-TV channels via MPEG-2 at 4.5 Mbps to 10 Mbps with DVD visual quality. Its service also features interactive pay-TV elements and enables PC or TV connection with the aid of a set-top box."

    • Re:Thanks to piracy (Score:5, Interesting)

      by 1u3hr ( 530656 ) on Sunday April 24, 2005 @10:24AM (#12329063)
      In HK if we want pirated DVDs or software, we can buy it for about 50c/disk. Less hassle than downloading mostly. Though I suppose BitTorrent will pick up when people want to see the new episodes of Survivor or whatever. (Even though the overseas bandwidth is capped, local P2P will go much faster once there's a local seed or two.)

      But the commercial motivation is probably video on demand, and video phones.

    • Now just everyone pause and think. What would people do with these 1gbit streams if there was no (illegal) downloadable content?

      AV conferencing
      AV streaming, i.e. network TV/HDTV
      Remote terminal access
      VPN
      Net conferencing

      I would think that any service that permits people to work without the use of transportation would be of great benifit to any large city. I would think piracy isn't the only application.
  • and here i am, in the UK, stuck on 512k atm, with 2mb being the fastest affordable choice i can see :(.
    1 gigabit tho. Thats an obscene amount of bandwith - not even bittorrent could consume that much.... surely

  • CAT5e, not CAT5 (Score:3, Informative)

    by base_chakra ( 230686 ) * on Sunday April 24, 2005 @08:26AM (#12328459)
    This kind of solution only really works in town blocks where cat5 cabling is a realistic option.

    While technically it's often possible to do gigabit ethernet with CAT5, the article actually mentions that the cable drops are CAT5e.

  • Shut up. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Micah ( 278 ) on Sunday April 24, 2005 @10:57AM (#12329281) Homepage Journal
    I pay $84/month for 128k here in Ecuador. I don't even want to hear this! /me rips out hair
  • I'm moving to Hong Kong to study:

    1) Software, music, and game piracy
    2) The human female anatomy
    3) Human sexual intercourse
  • Obviously, they are not going to get full Internet access at anywhere near 1Gbps rates. The ISP's access to the Internet is most likely below 1Gbps.

    But, in dense metropolitan areas (Hong Kong is a best case scenario for this) there are interesting possibilities for file sharing and other community services. File shares among friends and family become as good as local disk.

    If your 1Gbps zone is the street you live on, it's of more limited usefulness. But, if it's the whole city, this would kick butt
  • High Definition Video is a max of 19.8 Mbits/s. If you had a good enough storage system you could stream 50 high definition videos at the same time with a symmetric 1Gb/s connection.

    The terms cap the bandwidth to foreign countries which could have strange effects on the spread of culture as the mainstream media loses its grip on the production of video content. Maybe the best role for government in the bandwidth business would be the subsidization of ISP upstream bandwidth costs to foreign countries, i

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