The Office of the Telecommunications Authority (Ofta) has decided to issue two more external facilities telecoms licences.
The move indicates the Government is continuing its efforts to open the telecoms market to competition and strengthen Hong Kong's position as a regional telecoms and broadcasting hub.
External facilities licences enable companies to provide their own international telecoms links to Hong Kong. Until deregulation earlier this year, carriers were forced to go through Cable & Wireless HKT's international gateway.
Ofta has already named 12 successful applicants for licences to operate satellite-based external facilities and 13 successful applicants for cable-based external facilities.
The authority said yesterday it had invited SAR-based OneLink Cable Network to operate cable-based and Telhope Information Development to operate satellite-based external facilities.
'Based on the further clarifications supplied by [OneLink] and [Telhope] to substantiate their claims in their original proposals, [the authority] was satisfied that their proposals met the licensing criteria,' an Ofta spokesman said.
