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Completion of a series of regulatory reviews which facilitate technological and market developments, including fixed-mobile convergence and wireless broadband technologies, will be the priority tasks of the Office of the Telecommunications Authority (OFTA) in 2007, as projected by the Director-General of Telecommunications, Mr M H Au, in the year-end media briefing today (January 29).
"Technological development is the driver for growth of the industry. As the regulator of the telecommunications market, we have the responsibility to update our regulation and create a favourable environment for investment in new technologies, which ultimately will bring innovation and choice to users and economic benefits to the community as a whole," Mr Au said.
"We have already made considerable progress in 2006 by identifying and analysing the relevant issues, making preliminary proposals in our consultation papers and engaging the industry in discussions of the issues. In 2007, we aim to conclude the reviews so that we can move ahead to implement whatever we consider to be the most appropriate outcome of the reviews."
The public consultation on the review of fixed-mobile convergence (FMC) began in 2006. Submissions are being studied by OFTA.
"OFTA will complete, as early as possible in 2007, the review on FMC to pave the way for investment in convergent technologies.
"The rapid development of wireless technologies is another important trend. OFTA will have regard to the Government's spectrum policy, which is now under review, make available spectrum to the market, including the spectrum which enables the provision of mobile services based on the CDMA 2000 standard and the spectrum for broadband wireless access (BWA). Considerations and finalisation of the procedure for the open bidding of the spectrum will be another major task of OFTA in 2007.
"We would also aim to conclude the review on the universal service arrangement as soon as practicable in 2007 so as to give transparency and certainty to the market," Mr Au said.
Concerning the progress of the follow-up work with regard to the incident of submarine cable damages caused by the earthquakes near Taiwan on December 26, 2006, OFTA is now working with the concerned operators to review the outage reporting mechanisms to agree on the most efficient way of disseminating information to the public in future network incidents of this nature. It is expected the new mechanisms will be implemented by next month.
"We consider that both the operators and OFTA should play their respective roles in advising the users and the public. The operators, having first-hand information about the operational status of their systems and services, should be responsible for providing prompt information and advice to their customers about outages or degradation.
"Where the outages or degradation fall within defined criteria in the reporting mechanisms being reviewed, operators should, in addition to providing information and advice to their customers, report to OFTA within the specified time. OFTA, upon receiving such information, should promptly inform the public and provide guidance where necessary if the outages or degradation are assessed to have significant and territory-wide implications," Mr Au said.
OFTA will also examine the contingency plans of operators to ensure efficient backup capacity and effective diversity to deal with emergencies. OFTA will consider issuing codes of practice or guidelines if necessary.
"Under a pro-competition and market-driven regulatory regime, there are sufficient incentives from market forces for operators to provide adequate diversity and redundancy to enable them to restore their services expeditiously in an emergency. In this case, the regulator should not lightly intervene in market players' operational matters and commercial decisions. We also consider Government investment in, or allocation of, standby capacity to be inappropriate as this approach would dilute the effectiveness of the market forces, " Mr Au said.
Discussions are also being held between OFTA and operators on what should appropriately be undertaken at the government or inter-government level to facilitate the acquisition by operators of adequate backup capacity and route diversity for their contingency plans.
Ends/Monday, January 29, 2007
Issued at HKT 17:54
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