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HONG KONG-Often seen as some of the earliest adopters of new technology, consumers in Hong Kong have given a cool reception to the first offerings of the mobile Internet revolution.
In the midst of considerable hype, all of the former British colony's cellular operators have launched Wireless Application Protocol services over the past six months. Yet only an estimated 10,000 or so users-out of a total mobile subscriber basein Hong Kong of 3.7 million - succumbed to subscription.
On the face of it, this is a knock to operators who think they can quickly encourage customers to start seeing the mobile phone as a gateway to the Internet as much as a tool for voice.
However, far from easing back on their plans to put data services at the heart of their operations, service providers are continuing to sign up new content channels to beef up their WAP offerings. Uniformly, they blame the lack of consumer enthusiasm on the early problems obtaining WAP handsets and on the still-slow download speeds. General packet...