ד
-
31-
Allocation of spectrum to mobile radiotelephone operators
The Telecommunications Authority (TA), Mr Alexander Arena, announced today (Thursday) that he had decided to allocate two blocks of 0.6 MHz of cellular spectrum to each of the existing four Public Mobile Radiotelephone Services (PMRS) operators: Hutchison Telephone Co Ltd, Hong Kong Telecom CSL Ltd, Pacific Link Communications Ltd and SmarTone Mobile Communications Ltd.
This allocation is temporary, being for one year from July 1, 1995 to June 30, 1996 in order to meet the consumer demand and to maintain, and improve, the quality of service provided to customers.
"The cellular services in Hong Kong have now passed half a million customers. With a growth rate of four to five per cent per month, more than 20,000 new customers are joining cellular service every month," Mr Arena said.
"However, under the current spectrum plan, there is no available spectrum in the existing PMRS frequency bands to cater for this growth in demand.
"In fact the current plan calls for two blocks of 2.65 MHz of spectrum to be returned by operators on June 30, 1995. This returned spectrum will now be divided up and re-allocated to each operator to alleviate congestion problems.
"Since the temporary allocation of spectrum to the existing PMRS operators will be for one year to mid-1996 and all operators have to adhere to the original spectrum transition plan from the year 1996 to 2000, the up-coming Personal Communications Services should not be unduly affected when they begin to launch commercial service following licensing later this year. The temporary arrangement should be welcomed by the existing customers and the industry as a whole."
A statement has been issued by the TA on this temporary allocation of spectrum and may be obtained from the Office of the Telecommunications Authority (OFTA) (telephone: 2961 6624, fax: 2803 5112) or by dialing into the electronic bulletin board service of OFTA (telephone: 2834 0119).
End/Thursday, June 1, 1995