B. EVALUATION OF PROPOSALS
The decision by the Hong Kong Government to establish a cable TV service and a second telecommunications network through a single coordinated project is bold and imaginative. In many respects the project will be the first of its kind, and the entity awarded the project will be breaking new ground. Because of the uniqueness of the project, the Government decided to seek technical advice to help it to evaluate the proposals. Arthur D. Little (ADL) conducted a programme of work during March and April 1989 to provide the Government with an evaluation of the technical, telecommunications and financial aspects of the proposals.
The four proposals were received by ADL on 1st March, 1989. After a preliminary review, a meeting was held with representatives of Government to discuss the evaluation criteria to be used in assessing the relative merits of the proposals. A series of meetings was then held with bidders to seek clarification. During these meetings, the following topics were discussed:
demand projections, based on market forecasts and expected penetration levels;
programming concepts and sources;
network topology and technology;
telecommunications services offered;
financial projections.
Meetings were held with all four of the bidders, some of whom provided additional material in response to our queries. This additional material was treated as part of their submission and considered in our evaluation. In fairness to all bidders, unsolicited additional material was not considered in our evaluation unless it was within the context of the original proposal and served to clarify it.
A preliminary report was delivered to Government on 29th March, 1989 to discuss our technical findings and to agree the main outstanding issues. Follow-up meetings were held with bidders and a series of questionnaires was prepared for each bidder to seek further clarification on outstanding issues. A presentation was made to the Broadcasting Authority and Government on 9th May 1989 for feedback prior to finalising our report.
It is important to note that the bidders proposals changed during the two months of the evaluation. HKCC improved its programming concepts and line- up for some of its important channels. This improvement was within the framework of its original proposal. HCV and Supertech made few changes. WTS substantially increased the information available and a new submission was
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