Legco panel to look into 3G spectrum issue

Hong Kong's four leading mobile network operators will likely step up the rhetoric against a government plan to take away and auction off chunks of their 3G spectrum at a Legislative Council meeting later this month.

SmarTone Telecommunications, CSL, Hutchison Telecommunications Hong Kong and PCCW's HKT are to be invited by the legislative body's panel on information technology and broadcasting to discuss the issue on March 27, according to a Legco document.

The Legco paper about the panel's meeting, a copy of which was obtained by the South China Morning Post, showed China Mobile and telecommunications equipment suppliers Huawei Technologies and Nokia Siemens Network were also invited.

This meeting has been scheduled about two weeks before the close of the Communications Authority's public consultation on what the government should do with the expiring 3G spectrum licences held by the four network operators.

SmarTone, CSL, Hutchison Telecommunications and HKT have not individually submitted any comments to the public consultation, which closes on April 11.

Their respective licences for the 3G frequency spectrum in the 1.9-gigahertz to 2.2GHz band are due to expire in October 2016.

In the initial industry consultation held by the Communications Authority last year, the government presented three options on what it might do with the expiring 3G spectrum licences: renew them at a reasonable fee; put their 3G spectrum up for public auction; or take a third of each of the operators' 3G spectrum allocation and auction these off.