Hong Kong’s Office of the Telecommunications Authority (OFTA) plans to kick off the spectrum auction for the 850MHz, 900MHz and 2GHz bands on 28 February, reported Telecompaper.
Applications for the 15-year licence auction are reportedly expected to be…
Hong Kong’s Office of the Telecommunications Authority (OFTA) plans to kick off the spectrum auction for the 850MHz, 900MHz and 2GHz bands on 28 February, reported Telecompaper.
Applications for the 15-year licence auction are reportedly expected to be received by 1 February, with qualified bidders notified by 18 February.
In a statement in early December, OFTA said that the bands were being auctioned to provide public mobile telecoms services. The number of users accessing mobile data services has doubled over the past three years in Hong Kong, which boasts an 82% penetration rate.
“The mobile data service market is booming. To meet the demand and to sustain the momentum of growth, the mobile industry needs to invest in additional network capacity,” an OFTA spokesman said in a statement.
The radio spectrum available is divided into four frequency bands: frequency band A (832.5-837.5MHz paired with 877.5-882.5), 10MHz in total; frequency band B (885-890MHz paired with 930-935MHz), 10MHz in total; frequency band C1 (2010.0-2014.8MHz), 4.8MHz in total; and frequency band C2 (2014.8-2019.7 MHz), 4.9 MHz in total.
The auction reserve price has been set at HK$30m (US$3.8m) for each of the frequency bands A and B and HK$15m (US$1.9m) for each of the frequency bands C1 and C2.
The winning bidders will be required to cover at least half of the Hong Kong population for each of the frequency bands they receive by 2016 at the latest.
