Technical Standards In Hong Kong
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As a former British colony and territory, technical standards in Hong Kong of today has been largely influenced by that of the United Kingdom, with some exceptions due to local and practical considerations.


Electrical plugs and adaptors

Before the legislation of the Electrical Products Regulation (a few years prior to the handover in 1997), British standard extension cables,
plug Plug, PLUG, plugs, or plugged may refer to: * Plug, an insertive closure or stopper (plug) ** Core plug, used to fill the casting holes on engines ** Butt plug, a sex toy that is inserted into the rectum ** Earplug for ear protection ** Plug (s ...
s and adaptors were seldom found in the market. Electrical appliances were fitted with 2-pin plugs and quasi-UK three pin plugs (which meant they were compatible with
BS 1363 Plugs and sockets for electrical appliances not hardwired to mains electricity originated in the United Kingdom in the 1870s and were initially two-pin designs. These were usually sold as a mating pair, but gradually de facto and then officia ...
or
BS 546 Plugs and sockets for electrical appliances not hardwired to mains electricity originated in the United Kingdom in the 1870s and were initially two-pin designs. These were usually sold as a mating pair, but gradually de facto and then officia ...
sockets, but the plug itself did not comply with the
British Standard British Standards (BS) are the standards produced by the BSI Group which is incorporated under a royal charter and which is formally designated as the national standards body (NSB) for the UK. The BSI Group produces British Standards under th ...
). After the enforcement of the regulation, many British standard electrical products are common in Hong Kong market. Some
adaptors An adapter or adaptor is a device that converts attributes of one electrical device or system to those of an otherwise incompatible device or system. Some modify power or signal attributes, while others merely adapt the physical form of one con ...
common in the United Kingdom are not available in Hong Kong. Conversely, local manufacturers develop adaptors for the Hong Kong market and they are not often sold in the UK. Some local manufacturers print the
Union Flag The Union Jack or Union Flag is the ''de facto'' national flag of the United Kingdom. The Union Jack was also used as the official flag of several British colonies and dominions before they adopted their own national flags. It is sometimes a ...
on the plugs and extension cables, but these products are not manufactured or sold in the United Kingdom. This practice has not ceased even though Hong Kong was transferred to the
People's Republic of China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...
in 1997.


Electric sockets (wiring system)

Based on the adapted version of IEE Wiring Regulations, the colonial Hong Kong Government published ''Code of Practice for the Electricity (Wiring) Regulation'' in the 1990s. This book has been revised several times and the latest version was published in 2009. In Government buildings, public housing estates and Government-sponsored educational institutions, British electrical products (brands include Tenby,
MK electric MK Electric is a company that makes electrical accessories. The company's headquarters are in Basildon, Essex, England, from where it sells goods worldwide. History In 1912 Charles Arnold and Charles Belling formed Belling and Company making ...
, Federal Electric, MEM, Crabtree, Legrand etc.) are often used. However, these British electrical products are not very popular in the private sector. Some people consider that British sockets are not very good-looking so they prefer other brands.
Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...
-based
Clipsal Clipsal is an Australian brand of electrical accessories. Its primary factory, once located at Bowden, moved to Gepps Cross. Smaller factories in South Australia at Nuriootpa, Strathalbyn, Wingfield, and in Bayswater, Victoria have closed an ...
(produced by
Gold Peak Gold Peak Technology Group Limited, formerly Gold Peak Industries (Holdings) Limited, is a Hong Kong–based multinational corporation which is established in 1964 and has been listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange since 1984. The Group has ...
in China) is the most popular brand in private buildings, and some Government buildings built after the
handover In cellular telecommunications, handover, or handoff, is the process of transferring an ongoing call or data session from one channel connected to the core network to another channel. In satellite communications it is the process of transf ...
of Hong Kong to
PRC China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the second-most populous country after India, representing 17.4% of the world population. China spans the e ...
in 1997.


Telephone sockets

Before the
handover In cellular telecommunications, handover, or handoff, is the process of transferring an ongoing call or data session from one channel connected to the core network to another channel. In satellite communications it is the process of transf ...
of Hong Kong, all the domestic telephone sockets installed were
BS 6312 BS, B.S., Bs, bs, or B's may refer to: Arts and entertainment *BS-, a prefix for all games broadcast for the Satellaview modem via the Japanese Broadcasting Satellite system * "B.S." (song), a song by Jhené Aiko from the album ''Chilombo'' *Tea ...
British telephone sockets but there was no stipulation on commercial telephone sockets. Both
Registered Jack A registered jack (RJ) is a standardized telecommunication network interface device, network interface for connecting voice and data equipment to a computer service provided by a local exchange carrier or long distance carrier. Registered inter ...
(RJ) and BS 6312 systems were (and are) found in commercial telephone installations. After the handover, the
Hong Kong Government The Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (commonly known as the Hong Kong Government or HKSAR Government) is the Executive (government), executive authorities of Hong Kong. It was established on 1 July 1997, following the ...
started gradually replacing the BS 6312 sockets with American RJ ones.The RJ System of telephone plugs and sockets is gradually replacing the BT System in Hong Kong
Office of the Telecommunications Authority The Office of the Communications Authority (OFCA) is an executive arm of the Communications Authority in Hong Kong. It is the body responsible for telecommunications regulation (through the Regulatory Affairs Branch), antitrust enforcement (thr ...
(OFTA), Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government Service providers install RJ sockets, instead of BS 6312 ones, for clients in new installation, relocation or maintenance projects. Existing BS 6312 sockets before the handover are still in use and there is no compulsory replacement programme.


Computers


Keyboard layouts

In the
Crown colony A Crown colony or royal colony was a colony governed by Kingdom of England, England, and then Kingdom of Great Britain, Great Britain or the United Kingdom within the English overseas possessions, English and later British Empire. There was usua ...
, United States and Chinese (Traditional) keyboards were utilized by both the colonial Hong Kong Government and the public. United Kingdom layout keyboards are rare in computer malls in
Sham Shui Po Sham Shui Po () is an area of Kowloon, Hong Kong, situated in the northwestern part of the Kowloon Peninsula, north of Tai Kok Tsui, east of Cheung Sha Wan and south of Shek Kip Mei (). It is located in and is the namesake of the Sham Shui ...
and
Mong Kok Mong Kok (Chinese language, Chinese: 旺角), also spelled Mongkok, often abbreviated as MK, is an area in Kowloon, Hong Kong. The Prince Edward, Hong Kong, Prince Edward subarea occupies the northern part of Mong Kok. As one of the major sho ...
. However, Japanese keyboards can occasionally be found.


Regional settings in Microsoft products

The default regional setting of
Microsoft Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...
sold in Hong Kong is "English (United States)". Many users in Hong Kong complain that their spell checker software highlights locally correct spelling like "colour" since they did not change the default regional settings in their
operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...
s and software applications. Most users, however, just leave the default regional setting (English (United States)) unchanged. Chinese versions of Microsoft Windows are far more popular than the English-language version among Chinese-speaking computer users in Hong Kong. Moreover, since many people use Chinese versions of Microsoft Windows and
Microsoft Office Microsoft Office, MS Office, or simply Office, is an office suite and family of client software, server software, and services developed by Microsoft. The first version of the Office suite, announced by Bill Gates on August 1, 1988, at CO ...
to produce their webpages and emails, many English-language websites and emails In Hong Kong have the encoding "Chinese (Traditional)" (
Big5 Big-5 or Big5 ( zh, t=大五碼) is a Chinese character encoding method used in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau for traditional Chinese characters. The People's Republic of China (PRC), which uses simplified Chinese characters, uses the GB 18030 ...
) rather than "Western European" (
ISO-8859-1 ISO/IEC 8859-1:1998, ''Information technology—8-bit computing, 8-bit single-byte coded graphic character (computing), character sets—Part 1: Latin alphabet No. 1'', is part of the ISO/IEC 8859 series of ASCII-based standard character enc ...
).
Unicode Unicode or ''The Unicode Standard'' or TUS is a character encoding standard maintained by the Unicode Consortium designed to support the use of text in all of the world's writing systems that can be digitized. Version 16.0 defines 154,998 Char ...
webpages are also not very common. Setting the browser to the encoding of "Western European" to view these Big5 Hong Kong webpages may cause some characters (for example, ',", £, € etc.) to be displayed incorrectly.


TV broadcast


Analogue terrestrial

Hong Kong used the UK PAL-I broadcast system. Stereo audio is under
NICAM Near Instantaneous Companded Audio Multiplex (NICAM) is an early form of lossy compression for digital audio. It was originally developed in the early 1970s for point-to-point links within broadcasting networks.Croll, M.G., Osborne, D.W. and Spi ...
system, which is the same as British standard.


Digital terrestrial

Hong Kong has adopted the system developed by PR China in 2006.


DVD and VCD

In the UK
DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...
s are region 2, of
PAL Phase Alternating Line (PAL) is a color encoding system for analog television. It was one of three major analogue colour television standards, the others being NTSC and SECAM. In most countries it was broadcast at 625 lines, 50 fields (25 ...
standard. However, even though Hong Kong is under control of the People's Republic of China, DVDs found here are not Region 6 (for users in the
mainland China "Mainland China", also referred to as "the Chinese mainland", is a Geopolitics, geopolitical term defined as the territory under direct administration of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in the aftermath of the Chinese Civil War. In addit ...
). Officially, the DVDs in Hong Kong are region 3 in NTSC colour-coding. DVDs of region 1 (US, NTSC format) or region 2 (Europe, PAL format) can be also found in local shops like
HMV HMV is an international music and entertainment retailer, founded in 1921. The brand is owned by Hilco Capital and operated by Sunrise Records, except in Japan, where it is owned and operated by Lawson. The inaugural shop was opened on Lo ...
, which is not an issue for the local market as
DVD players A DVD player is a machine that plays DVDs produced under both the DVD-Video and DVD-Audio technical standards, two different and incompatible standards. Some DVD players will also play audio CDs. DVD players are connected to a television to wa ...
commonly sold in the shops are multi-region. Just as other Asian countries,
VCD Video CD (abbreviated as VCD, and also known as Compact Disc Digital Video), (not to be confused with CD Video which is a type of LaserDisc, Laserdisc) is a home video format and the first format for distributing films on standard optical di ...
s are common for rental and sale in Hong Kong but these discs are not popular in the UK.


Telecommunications

Hong Kong uses the GSM 900 & 1800 standards and some operators offer 3G services (3G 2100).


Analog video

Similar with the US, Japan and Australia,
S-Video S-Video (also known as separate video, Y/C, and erroneously Super-Video) is an analog video signal format that carries standard-definition video, typically at 525 lines or 625 lines. It encodes video luma and chrominance on two separate chann ...
is commonly used in colonial and post-handover Hong Kong equipment. These ports are commonly found there on consumer TVs, DVD players,
VCRs A videocassette recorder (VCR) or video recorder is an electromechanical device that records analog audio and analog video from broadcast television or other AV sources and can play back the recording after rewinding. The use of a VCR to re ...
and
game consoles A video game console is an electronic device that outputs a video signal or image to display a video game that can typically be played with a game controller. These may be home consoles, which are generally placed in a permanent location connect ...
sold there. Although the UK uses the higher-quality
RGB The RGB color model is an additive color model in which the red, green, and blue primary colors of light are added together in various ways to reproduce a broad array of colors. The name of the model comes from the initials of the three ...
signal transmission scheme provided by European Standard
SCART SCART (also known as or , especially in France, 21-pin EuroSCART in marketing by Sharp Corporation, Sharp in Asia, Euroconector in Spain, EuroAV or EXT, or EIA Multiport in the United States, as an EIA interface) is a French-originated standard ...
, SCART ports are seldom found in Hong Kong equipment. For RF signals, the Belling-Lee connector or IEC 169-2 connector are very commonly used in equipment sold in Hong Kong. However, same as Europe, the 75-ohm
F connector F, or f, is the sixth letter of the Latin alphabet and many modern alphabets influenced by it, including the modern English alphabet and the alphabets of all other modern western European languages. Its name in English is ''ef'' (pronounc ...
is used by
Cable TV Hong Kong Hong Kong Cable Television Limited (), formerly known as Wharf Cable Television Limited () until 31 October 1998, is a cable television provider in Hong Kong currently owned by Forever Top (Asia) Limited, which operates it as a part of i-Cable ...
instead of Belling-Lee ones.


See also

*
Colonial Hong Kong Hong Kong was under British rule from 1841 to 1997, except for a brief period of Japanese occupation during World War II from 1941 to 1945. It was a crown colony of the United Kingdom from 1841 to 1981, and a dependent territory from 1981 to ...
*
History of Hong Kong The region of Hong Kong has been inhabited since the Paleolithic, Old Stone Age, later becoming part of the Chinese Empire with its loose incorporation into the Qin dynasty (221–206 BC). Starting out as a Walled villages of Hong Kong, farming ...


References


External links


GSM Roaming - Hong Kong
{{DEFAULTSORT:Technical Standards In Hong Kong Science and technology in Hong Kong British Hong Kong Electrical wiring
Hong Kong Hong Kong)., Legally Hong Kong, China in international treaties and organizations. is a special administrative region of China. With 7.5 million residents in a territory, Hong Kong is the fourth most densely populated region in the wor ...
Hong Kong Hong Kong)., Legally Hong Kong, China in international treaties and organizations. is a special administrative region of China. With 7.5 million residents in a territory, Hong Kong is the fourth most densely populated region in the wor ...