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Non-Tech : Amati investors -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Andreas Helke who wrote (30679)	3/25/1998 3:38:00 AM
From: pat mudge	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 31386

Remember HKTelephone???? <<< Hongkong Telecom: HK plugs in to interactive TV TUESDAY MARCH 24 1998 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ By Louise Lucas in Hong Kong ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Hong Kong became the first big city plugged in to fully interactive TV yesterday, blazing a trail for other Asian and western countries. The pioneering service - which pays homage to local passions by running "racing on demand" alongside the more usual mix of video on demand, home banking and shopping - was unveiled by Hongkong Telecom, the dominant carrier, and Tung Chee-hwa, leader of Hong Kong. Speaking amid a raft of giant screens, billowing smoke and fluttering glitter, Linus Cheung, chief executive of Hongkong Telecom, said: "It is clearly evident that Hong Kong is ready for the arrival of a new era: the information age." The territory is regarded as a natural market for VOD, boasting both geographic and demographic advantages. As a densely populated city where most people live in tower blocks, the economics of wiring up homes are more attractive than in spread-out towns. Hong Kong has also been at the forefront of advanced technology, and today boasts more fibre optic network below ground - more than 220,000 km of it - than the whole of Germany. "We believe that having a population with a high disposable income as well as an appetite for new technology, Hong Kong has all the right attributes for interactive media services development," said William Lo, managing director of Hongkong Telecom IMS which spearheaded the service. There is also an element of national pride. Mr Tung in his maiden policy address last year earmarked development of an information society, and recently created a new government department, the Information Technology and Broadcasting Bureau. It is an area which has been seized on by other government leaders, not least in Singapore and Malaysia where Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad has outlined plans for a M$35bn ($9.6bn) plus multimedia super corridor - which have been somewhat derailed by the Asian financial crisis. Hongkong Telecom's own plans to be on-stream in 1997 (the year when China resumed sovereignty over Hong Kong and therefore a "special" year) were scuppered by bureaucracy over the issue of licences. In the end the government, which received four bids for two licences, rejected two submissions and delayed the award of a second licence pending a legal dispute which involved two of the candidates. Hongkong Telecom thus begins with no direct competition. Analysts, however, say there is a wealth of competition in the form of satellite and cable TV as well as video shops and are not hopeful that Hongkong Telecom IMS will prove a strong commercial proposition.>>>