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The Office of the Telecommunications Authority (OFTA) announced that the auction of radio spectrum in the 2.3 GHz and 2.5 GHz bands was completed today (January 22). Three bidders have successfully bid for a total of 90 MHz of radio spectrum in the 2.5 GHz band at a total spectrum utilisation fee (SUF) of $1.5357 billion.
䩕With the assignment of the radio spectrum, the successful bidders will be able to deploy the next generation Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) technologies and offer a variety of advanced high-speed multimedia services. This should create a lot of opportunities for both network operators and providers of content and service applications,蒅 a spokesperson for OFTA said.
䩕This was the first time that the Government deployed an Internet-based software platform for auctioning radio spectrum, which is an important scarce public resource. With the participation of five bidders, we went through a total of 56 rounds of bidding over the past nine business days,蒅 the spokesperson said.
The provisional successful bidders, the radio spectrum bid and the SUF determined in the auction are tabulated below:
Provisional SUF Payable
Successful Bidder Radio Spectrum Bid (HK$M)
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Genius 30 MHz (2500-2515 MHz 518.0
Brand Limited paired with 2620-2635 MHz)
CSL Limited 30 MHz (2540-2555 MHz 523.0
paired with 2660-2675 MHz)
China Mobile 30 MHz (2555-2570 MHz 494.7
Hong Kong paired with 2675-2690 MHz)
Company Limited
Total 90 MHz 1535.7
䩕The Telecommunications Authority (TA) will issue the BWA licences upon receipt of the SUF and the performance bond from the provisional successful bidders,蒅 the spokesperson added.
Background
To maintain Hong Kong as a regional telecommunications hub and to facilitate the provision of quality telecommunications services to meet the challenges of the information age, the TA published the Information Memorandum on the auction of the BWA spectrum on October 3, 2008, inviting applications from interested parties for the BWA spectrum. The Information Memorandum sets out the reserve price of the spectrum auction, the auction rules and the licensing framework. Five companies submitted their applications by the deadline on December 16, 2008, and were qualified to take part in the spectrum auction starting from January 12, 2009.
The provisional successful bidders are required to pay the upfront SUF, to submit a performance bond of HK$150 million and to comply with other necessary regulatory requirements within 30 business days after the publication of the provisional successful bidder notice. The performance bond is to ensure that the licensees will provide BWA services within five years from the date of the issue of the licences.
Ends/Thursday, January 22, 2009
Issued at HKT 19:31
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