3HK 3G demo disappointing

January 26, 2004

Hutchison Whampoa's 3G service in Hong Kong falls below expectations and fails to delivery the much-promised video calling element, reported The Standard. At the weekend preview of the mobile service, it said video calls failed to wow consumers and that "picture quality was unclear" and "transmission speed was unsteady and choppy".

A senior executive for a US mobile Internet company said "the image is not as clear as I expected" and the video streaming suffers from interruptions. He said the service is behind that of Japan and Korea.

Hutchison begins commercial 3G service tomorrow and customers have a choice of three monthly tariffs to choose from. The three tariffs cost - HK$263, HK$383, and HK$533 per month - and includes 200, 300 and 500 minutes of video calls respectively.

Hutchison has around 50,000 NEC c616 handsets available for subscribers, priced at HK$4,380, or HK$3,980 each when two or more handsets are purchased.

Customers will be able to enjoy materials from local content providers, such as previews and excerpts of dramas from TVB and get live traffic update from Cable TV. In addition, Hutchison is also providing English Premiership football, and adult content such as Playboy channel and Asian pornography on its Sensation channel.