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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.
Before the legislation of the Electrical Products Regulation (a few years prior to the handover in 1997), British standard extension cables, plugs 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 or BS 546 sockets, but the plug itself did not comply with the British Standard).
After the enforcement of the regulation, many British standard electrical products are common in Hong Kong market. Some adaptors 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 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 in 1997.
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, [1] MK electric, Federal Electric, MEM, Crabtree, Legrand etc.) are often used. However, these British electrical products are not very popular in the private sector. Some people[ who? ] consider that British sockets are not very good-looking so they prefer other brands. Australia-based Clipsal (produced by Gold Peak in China) [2] is the most popular[ citation needed ] brand in private buildings, and some Government buildings built after the handover of Hong Kong to PRC in 1997.
Before the handover of Hong Kong, all the domestic telephone sockets installed were BS 6312 British telephone sockets but there was no stipulation on commercial telephone sockets. Both Registered Jack (RJ) and BS 6312 systems were (and are) found in commercial telephone installations.
After the handover, the Hong Kong Government started gradually replacing the BS 6312 sockets with American RJ ones. [3] 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.
In the Crown colony, 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 and Mong Kok. However, Japanese keyboards can occasionally be found.
The default regional setting of Microsoft Windows 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 systems 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.[ citation needed ]
Moreover, since many people use Chinese versions of Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office to produce their webpages and emails, many English-language websites and emails In Hong Kong have the encoding "Chinese (Traditional)" (Big5) rather than "Western European" (ISO-8859-1). Unicode webpages are also not very common.[ citation needed ] 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.
Hong Kong used the UK PAL-I broadcast system. Stereo audio is under NICAM system, which is the same as British standard.
Hong Kong has adopted the system developed by PR China in 2006.
In the UK DVDs are region 2, of PAL 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). 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, which is not an issue for the local market as DVD players commonly sold in the shops are multi-region.
Just as other Asian countries, VCDs are common for rental and sale in Hong Kong but these discs are not popular in the UK.
Hong Kong uses the GSM 900 & 1800 standards and some operators offer 3G services (3G 2100).
Similar with the US, Japan and Australia, S-Video is commonly used in colonial and post-handover Hong Kong equipment. These ports are commonly found there on consumer TVs, DVD players, VCRs and game consoles sold there. Although the UK uses the higher-quality RGB signal transmission scheme provided by European Standard SCART, 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 is used by Cable TV Hong Kong instead of Belling-Lee ones.
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 the authority of the charter, which lays down as one of the BSI's objectives to:
Set up standards of quality for goods and services, and prepare and promote the general adoption of British Standards and schedules in connection therewith and from time to time to revise, alter and amend such standards and schedules as experience and circumstances require.
SCART is a French-originated standard and associated 21-pin connector for connecting audio-visual (AV) equipment. The name SCART comes from Syndicat des Constructeurs d'Appareils Radiorécepteurs et Téléviseurs, "Radio and Television Receiver Manufacturers' Association", the French organisation that created the connector in the mid-1970s. The related European standard EN 50049 has then been refined and published in 1978 by CENELEC, calling it péritelevision, but it is commonly called by the abbreviation péritel in French.
Big-5 or Big5 is a Chinese character encoding method used in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau for traditional Chinese characters.
The RCA connector is a type of electrical connector commonly used to carry audio and video signals. The name RCA derives from the company Radio Corporation of America, which introduced the design in the 1930s. The connector’s male plug and female jack are called RCA plug and RCA jack.
"Schuko" refers to a plug/socket system used in much of Europe and in many countries east of there. It is a registered trademark referring to a system of AC power plugs and sockets that is defined as "CEE 7/3" (sockets) and "CEE 7/4" (plugs). A Schuko plug features two round pins of 4.8 mm diameter for the line and neutral contacts, plus two flat contact areas on the top and bottom side of the plug for protective earth (ground). The socket has a predominantly circular recess which is 17.5 mm deep with two symmetrical round apertures and two earthing clips on the sides of the socket positioned to ensure that the earth is always engaged before live pin contact is made. Schuko plugs and sockets are symmetric AC connectors. They can be mated in two ways, therefore line can be connected to either pin of the appliance plug. As with most types of European sockets, Schuko sockets can accept Europlugs. Schuko plugs are considered a very safe design when used with Schuko sockets, but they can also mate with other sockets to give an unsafe result.
The Hong Kong Supplementary Character Set is a set of Chinese characters – 4,702 in total in the initial release—used in Cantonese, as well as when writing the names of some places in Hong Kong.
AC power plugs and sockets connect electric equipment to the alternating current (AC) mains electricity power supply in buildings and at other sites. Electrical plugs and sockets differ from one another in voltage and current rating, shape, size, and connector type. Different standard systems of plugs and sockets are used around the world.
A telephone jack and a telephone plug are electrical connectors for connecting a telephone set or other telecommunications apparatus to the telephone wiring inside a building, establishing a connection to a telephone network. The plug is inserted into its counterpart, the jack, which is commonly affixed to a wall or baseboard. The standards for telephone jacks and plugs vary from country to country, though the 6P2C style modular plug has become by far the most common type.
Mains electricity by country includes a list of countries and territories, with the plugs, voltages and frequencies they commonly use for providing electrical power to low voltage appliances, equipment, and lighting typically found in homes and offices. Some countries have more than one voltage available. For example, in North America the supply to most premises is split-phase, with 240 volts between phases and 120 volts between either phase and neutral. Most sockets are connected to 120 V and neutral. By connecting across the phases, 240 V is available for large appliances. Often different sockets are mandated for different voltage or current levels.
In electricity supply design, a ring circuit is an electrical wiring technique in which sockets and the distribution point are connected in a ring. It is contrasted with the usual radial circuit, in which sockets and the distribution point are connected in a line with the distribution point at one end.
A standard Swedish telephone plug carries one telephone line and has four flat metal pins and one plastic pin. The design is only used in Sweden and older installations in Iceland. Neither plug nor socket is compatible with other plugs and sockets. It is defined in Swedish Standard SS 455 15 50.
Electrical wiring in the United Kingdom is commonly understood to be an electrical installation for operation by end users within domestic, commercial, industrial, and other buildings, and also in special installations and locations, such as marinas or caravan parks. It does not normally cover the transmission or distribution of electricity to them.
On commercial products, the presence of the logo means that the manufacturer or importer affirms the goods' conformity with European health, safety, and environmental protection standards. It is not a quality indicator or a certification mark. The CE marking is required for goods sold in the European Economic Area (EEA); goods sold elsewhere may also carry the mark.
The Europlug is a flat, two-pole, round-pin domestic AC power plug, rated for voltages up to 250 V and currents up to 2.5 A. It is a compromise design intended to connect low-power Class II appliances safely to the many different forms of round-pin domestic power socket used across Europe. However, it is not compatible with the rectangular-pin BS 1363 sockets found in Cyprus, Gibraltar, Singapore, Malaysia, United Arab Emirates, Hong Kong, Ireland, Malta and the United Kingdom. Europlugs are non-rewirable and must be supplied attached to a power cord.
This article exists to give readers an insight into electrical wiring in Hong Kong.
A modular connector is a type of electrical connector for cords and cables of electronic devices and appliances, such as in computer networking, telecommunication equipment, and audio headsets.
British telephone sockets were introduced in their current plug and socket form on 19 November 1981 by British Telecom to allow subscribers to connect their own telephones. The connectors are specified in British Standard BS 6312. Electrical characteristics of the telephone interface are specified by individual network operators, e.g. in British Telecom's SIN 351. Electrical characteristics required of British telephones used to be specified in BS 6305.
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 official standards arose to enable the interchange of compatible devices. British standards have proliferated throughout large parts of the former British Empire.
Today there are approximately 20 types in common use around the world, and many obsolete socket types are still found in older buildings.
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