There should be no future limit on the number of new telecommunications competitors in Hong Kong and privileges afforded to the current industry participants - both for local and external services - should end, according to Hongkong Telecom.
'More important than the number of competitors is the question of how best to assure that competition will generate the large capital investments necessary to build the enhanced infrastructure,' a spokesman said.
With the conclusion of the Framework Agreement for the surrender of Hongkong Telecom's monopoly on basic international services and the ratification on the Agreement on Basic Telecommunications of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the Government has endorsed a comprehensive structure for the future of the industry in the SAR.
'That framework clearly provides for competition to become the vehicle for the development of information networks whose scope will leave few boundaries,' the spokesman said.
'OFTA is entering a new stage as a regulator; one in which industry forces outside Hong Kong will largely determine the shape of the market within.' With the introduction of International Simple Resale (ISR) services, the industry would face intense global competition in which strategic alliances, competitive consolidation, financial pressures and massive re-routing of voice and data traffic would be the facts of life for all players, he said.
Global competition will introduce large, well-financed and foreign-based operators who are likely to have a limited commitment to local infrastructure development into the SAR.
