WHILE China studies the award of licences for new mobile telephone operators, existing Hong Kong services are becoming so overloaded that quality is being affected. So unless it wants to cause further disruption and undermine the growth of one of the few consumer industries not yet hit by the economic slowdown, Beijing's Joint Liaison Group (JLG) team should hurry up and make some decisions.
That is the subtext to recent speeches by Alex Arena, the Director of Telecommunications. The news that some existing mobile telephone operators are beginning to turn away customers rather than allow quality to deteriorate further underlines just how urgent his message has become.
The Office of the Telecommunications Authority, which Mr Arena heads, admits that it underestimated the growth in the mobile telephone market. It is now in a hurry to catch up with demand by getting new licences awarded as soon as possible. But China is holding up progress.
It is too early to jump to conclusions about Chinese motives. Past experience might suggest the delay was a deliberate attempt to politicise the issue and damage the credibility of the Hong Kong Government. But China's attitude in recent months has been much more co-operativethan previously.
Beijing takes time to handle technical issues. And it has often shown a readiness to ask for consultations on matters which do not technically warrant automatic referral to the JLG. Not to have allowed more time for consultation suggests that the authority was either not thinking ahead or had underestimated China's interest.
Controlling the means of communication is an obsession with Beijing. So mobile telephones were not likely to be something which the Chinese authorities would let Hong Kong handle without consultation.
