MTR may raise licence fees for 4G telecoms services

The delivery of 4G mobile services on the MTR's railway system could be further delayed if the railway firm tries to raise the fees wireless network operators pay to offer their service in its trains and stations.

As negotiations continue between MTR and Hong Kong's five 4G service providers, a person close to the talks said: "Telecommunications network operators pay hundreds of millions of dollars worth of charges annually to the MTR for providing their services on its railway lines."

One 3G network operator is paying HK$25 million a year for using a handful of radio frequency bands, including 900 megahertz and 2100MHz, on which it delivers mobile services to subscribers travelling on the MTR.

Without elaborating, the person familiar with the talks said: "The MTR may charge even more for [firms to provide] 4G service."

For consumers, higher fees paid by telecommunications network operators to the MTR may have an impact on charges included in the mobile subscription contracts they sign up for.

Most of the network operators have tacked on HK$12 for MTR, tunnels, mobile service fee and administration charges to their users' monthly bills. But one operator said its monthly administration fee was not based on any MTR fee it paid.

"If we based that on the charges we pay, the administration fee will be a lot higher," said the operator, which declined to be identified.