HKT first out of the gate to adopt 50G PON in Hong Kong

Hong Kong-based operator HKT has become the first telecommunication service provider in the city to adopt the latest 50G PON technology, as the company prepares to ramp up the delivery of 50G applications that require ultra-high-speed broadband Internet connections to both home and commercial customers.

"With the development of smart homes, demand for high-speed multi-device connections has been increasing to cater for activities such as 8K video streaming, large video file transfer and sharing at home, online gaming and even real-time financial market monitoring and trading. We will continue to explore cutting-edge technologies to meet our customers' future connectivity needs, " Bruce Lam, HKT CEO, said in a statement.

Currently, HKT’s 10G fiber broadband network spans 2.4 million households and covers 50,000 residential buildings, as well as 8,000 commercial buildings in Hong Kong. The company has a territory-wide and robust fiber network infrastructure with a total length exceeding 2.5 million kilometers, more than enough to circle the Earth over 60 times.

According to the telco operator, deploying the 50G PON technology enables the company to easily enhance the performance of its existing network.

Significant improvement in data speeds

HKT pointed out that 50G fiber broadband offers a significant improvement in speed, with a specification download speed of up to 50 Gbit/s.

When paired with the latest Wi-Fi 7 technology, the operator added that the increase in bandwidth supports smooth simultaneous multi-device connectivity of all kinds for users both at home and in a commercial setting.

HKT said that latency also improves by 27% on average, compared to that of a gigabit fiber network.

Steve Ng, managing director of the commercial group at HKT, said the adoption of 50G PON enables the telco operator to meet the changing network needs of different enterprise customers.

"As AI and cloud applications become ubiquitous, enterprise customers' demand for bandwidth, speed and low latency have continued to elevate. Employees need to use cloud services, collaboration tools and AI solutions within the office environment. Schools are actively implementing e-learning and remote teaching. Large-scale events such as exhibitions and concerts generate high demands for live streaming or AR/VR experience solutions," Ng said.