Mobile coverage in Hong Kong's country parks has been further improved with the launch of a new base station at Long Ke, bringing the total number of base stations in country parks to 13.

With three more mobile base stations under construction and scheduled to be completed later this year, the mobile coverage in Sai Kung, southern Lantau and Tai Lam Chung will be further enhanced.

"As one of its on-going initiatives, the Office of the Telecommunications Authority continues to facilitate and coordinate with the mobile network operators to establish new mobile base stations in the country parks. Thanks to the effort of the industry, the mobile coverage in the country parks has been significantly improved in recent years. On this particular occasion we would like to thank China Mobile Peoples Telephone Company Limited for taking a lead in the construction of the new base station at Long Ke as well as Smartone 3G Limited for joining the project. Other operators will also soon join the project," a spokesperson of OFTA said.

The newly launched mobile station at Long Ke covers the Sai Kung East Country Park, the Long Ke Wan and parts of the Maclehose Trail Section 1 and Section 2.

"OFTA also continues to update the information of mobile coverage in country parks for dissemination to the public. So far a total of 161 digital maps have been produced and posted on OFTA's website for public information," continued the spokesperson.

Three different colors are used in the maps to denote the availability of mobile service along the more popular trails. Green color indicates that the signal of at least one local mobile network is good. Yellow color indicates that the voice quality of calls may be poor and red color indicates that there is no mobile service. At locations marked with green or yellow, hikers subscribing to any GSM network may dial 112 to contact the 999 emergency call center when they are in need of help. The digital maps also display the locations of public phones and emergency helplines.