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The Telecommunications Authority today (April 27) announced a plan to release spectrum through open auction to enable the provision of Code Division Multiple Access 2000 (CDMA2000) services in Hong Kong from November, 2008.
The necessary subsidiary legislation will be tabled in the Legislative Council to impose spectrum utilisation fee on the use of the relevant spectrum and to prescribe the method of determining the spectrum utilisation fee by auction. The auction is expected to be held in the last quarter of 2007 after which the authority will grant one licence for use of the spectrum.
The CDMA2000 standard is one of the main mobile communications standards in the world that is capable of providing high-speed data services with data rates comparable to the existing 3G services available in Hong Kong.
"At present, mobile services based on the CDMA2000 standard are provided in 85 economies, including the US, Korea, Japan and the Mainland. Altogether, there are 325 million CDMA2000 subscribers worldwide. On the Mainland, there are more than 30 million CDMA2000 subscribers. The licensing of a new mobile service using the CDMA2000 standard will contribute to the harmonisation of popular mobile services with the Mainland as well as other parts of the world, thereby strengthening Hong Kong's strategic position as a world city and the gateway between the Mainland and the world," a spokesman for the Office of the Telecommunications Authority (OFTA) said.
"Any interested party, including incumbent fixed/mobile carriers, is welcome to bid for the spectrum. Details of the auction rules, including the reserve price, will be released nearer to the time of the auction."
This will be the second spectrum auction held by the Government, following the first held in 2001 for the deployment of spectrum in the 1.9 - 2.2 GHz band for the provision of the third-generation mobile services.
The authority announced the decision in November, 2004, that the incumbent licensee of the CDMA service would not be granted a new licence upon the expiry of its licence. Instead, it was given a three-year licence extension to facilitate subscriber migration to other networks until November 20, 2008.
To seek public views on the continuity of CDMA services after November, 2008, the authority initiated a public consultation on October 27, 2006. A total of 19 submissions were received. After considering the submissions, the authority announced the plan today to proceed with the assignment of the spectrum for the provision of CDMA2000 services through an open auction.
Ends/Friday, April 27, 2007
Issued at HKT 17:04
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