In the highly competitive telecommunications industry nowadays, getting ahead of competitors means more than just doing better, it also requires a think-out-of-the-box mindset.

In the past, customers were happy enough to using broadband service with only 6 to 8Mbps in bandwidth for browsing websites or downloading some documents occasionally. But with the recent emergence and increasing popularity of high bandwidth applications around the world, e.g. YouTube, legal movie download services or online photo album, customers are asking for more and more than before.

With the deployment of optical fibre, some Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in Hong Kong are capable of providing ultra high speed, stable and symmetric (same speed in uploading and downloading) bandwidth up to 1000Mbps at an easily affordable price today.

However, the second question arises. Even with the state-of-the-art pioneering technology, in face of the keen competition in the telecommunications industry, is it enough to differentiate oneself from the rest simply through product differentiation and thus satisfy the customers?

The answer might be "Yes" if it were asked 10 years ago as people simply wanted their basic needs to be satisfied, i.e. get a means to facilitate communications. Therefore, most of the ISPs focused solely on products and technical support and easily overlooked the importance of quality service. But as we are in a different era today where quality of service is incessantly emphasized, in order to survive and stand out from the industry, it becomes crucial for one to differentiate services from others in addition to products.

For instance, dialing the customer service hotline could be quite a hassle especially when you are looking for help. It is not uncommon to found many disgruntled customers spending hours waiting for their calls to be answered, and when somebody did, they were told they had to call a different number for help. In view of this problem, recently, an ISP introduced a revolutionary enhancement in customer service by combining customer service and sales into a single unit. Such merger represents the provision of one-stop service on both customers services and product sales and it also means calling only one hotline number to get everything you want every time. Indeed, a personal customer care executive is assigned to each customer, each with a dedicated service contact number. What's more is that there are more means of channels provided for customers to contact their own dedicated customer care executive other than calling the hotline. Customers could make contact through MSN, Yahoo Messenger, ICQ or even face-to-face phone conference according to their own preferences and needs. In this way, a more personalized service can be provided and a long term win-win relationship can be established.

Equipped with both the technology breakthrough and innovative enhancement in customer services, the landscape of the telecommunications industry in Hong Kong is changing and evolving into a better one. Ultimately, it will lead to a new communication era where communications between people is made easier and happier.

When choosing an ISP, there are several points to notice.
1. Make sure the bandwidth provision is high enough to facilitate daily use of Internet, e.g. it takes 2 hours to download a 4G DVD using 6Mbps bandwidth versus 7 minutes using 100Mbps and 41 seconds using 1000Mbps.
2. For broadband TV, it requires 4Mbps in bandwidth, i.e. if you are using 6Mbps broadband service, only 2Mbps will be left for Internet browsing activities' uses.
3. For traditional 6/8Mbps broadband, the bandwidth for uploading and downloading is usually unsymmetrical with only 512kps in uploading.