Roctec started in Hong Kong in 1987 as a data communications specialist, built around one question: how do you keep a network running when a city depends on it. Each decade since has put that question to a new technology — fibre, passenger systems, telecommunications and broadcasting, connected assets, and now AI. The systems changed. The standard of care did not: design for operations that never pause, and support them for the life of the asset rather than the length of a contract.
A JOURNEY THROUGH FOUR DECADES
Four eras, four different definitions of the job
Selected moments from Roctec’s history, grouped by what the work was for at the time. The full milestone record lives on About Us .
1987 — 1990s
Foundation and early network technology
Established in Hong Kong as a data communications specialist, then moved into rail from 1995. The decade ended with fibre networks and passenger displays at a scale the region had not attempted before.
1987Established in Hong Kong
1995Entered the rail industry
1996Asia's first large FDDI network, Hong Kong MTR
1998Large-scale PIDS for Hong Kong MTR and Singapore MRT
2000s
Expansion into passenger experience and the region
Work moved from carrying data to carrying information to passengers — broadcasting, public address, CCTV — and the company put engineers on the ground beyond Hong Kong.
2003World's largest in-train multimedia broadcasting system, Hong Kong
2005Winbliss Systems Ltd established in Bangkok
2007Public address and CCTV system, Hong Kong railway
2010s
Whole systems, and responsibility for them
Roctec stopped supplying parts of railway telecommunications and started being accountable for them — as main contractor on a new line, and as the source of the simulation and IoT systems operators run on.
2010Completed telecommunications systems solutions for the Hong Kong MTR
2012Main contractor, telecommunications systems, South Island Line (East)
2015Train driver simulation systems across Hong Kong MTR train types
2019Largest-ever IoT with GPS positioning system, Hong Kong Light Rail
2020s
AI and digital solutions in live operations
The current decade applies intelligence where it changes a decision an operator has to make — service information, hotlines, accessibility — inside systems that were already mission-critical.
2018Became a member of the Trans.Ad Group in Thailand
2025Contributed to the award-winning AI Station Hotline project and inclusive mobility app
RECOGNITION ALONG THE WAY
A partner network forty years in the making
IN CONVERSATION
The People Behind Forty Years
Conversations with the engineers, project leads and partners who have shaped Roctec since 1987.
October 20, 2026
Building the Network That Built the City
A senior network engineer looks back on three decades of infrastructure projects, from the first fibre rollouts to today's zero-trust deployments.
“Every project taught us the same lesson: the network is only as good as the people who stand behind it at three in the morning.”
AI and analytics applied where they change a decision an operator has to make — service information, incident response, asset condition — not where they only add a dashboard.
Security as part of the build
Operational technology and IT converging means the network and its defences are designed together, commissioned together and reviewed together for the life of the system.
Depth across the region
More capability held locally in each hub, so clients in Hong Kong, Thailand and Singapore work with the same standard of engineering and the same accountability.
