In a city where so many people spend their days talking into 3.5 million mobile telephones, it will not be long before these outnumber fixed-line phones. Yet despite competition among operators or predictions that e-commerce and the Internet will soon be linked to cellphones, the consumer still is not getting the best of it due to monopolistic practices.
Unlike fixed-line services, which have free access to lands and buildings for installing and maintaining equipment, mobile phone companies must rent space to set up their radio communication facilities. And they have little choice because their licence states precisely where they must provide service.
That gives landlords the upper hand, and some take advantage of it to demand such high fees that phone companies can operate at a loss. A pending law would change that, but tunnel operators, railway companies and shopping malls which would be affected by the Telecommunication (Amendment) Bill are naturally anxious to stick to the current system. They have benefited tremendously by having captive clients, and sometimes exploiting them shamelessly.
One mobile company complains that the Cross-Harbour Tunnel raised its fees by 225 per cent between 1996 and 1997. There was no corresponding cut in vehicle tolls. So the public, the losers if this practice is not regulated, are unlikely to accept the present argument by tunnel companies that tolls must rise if their cellphone revenue declines.
Far from breaching the tenets of the free market, as objectors claim, there would be a greater degree of open access if the Telecommunication Authority is able to settle disputes about these charges. That would increase competition and help drive prices down. Tunnel companies surely would find that more acceptable than a move to grant cellphone companies free access rights, which is how things are done elsewhere in the world. Then they would have no revenue at all.
