Ricky Wong warned two months ago about plans to upgrade mobile TV service

The government hit back yesterday at Ricky Wong Wai-kay's allegations that was it deliberately blocking him from launching his television business.

It said Wong's current plan for his HKTV mobile television service would breach the law without a licence. Free-to-air leader TVB also stepped into the row, accusing Wong of reinventing HKTV as "de facto domestic free TV without a licence" by upgrading its broadcasting standards.

Wong, who was told on Tuesday that he must not launch a mobile TV service if he did not change his plan, denied his service was free TV in disguise.

Eliza Lee Man-ching, director-general of communications in the Office of the Communications Authority, said the office contacted HKTV in January after learning of its intention to upgrade its transmission standard from China Mobile Multimedia Broadcasting (CMMB ) to the much finer Digital Terrestrial Multimedia Broadcasting (DTMB). On January 24, it gave a "friendly reminder" the change might make the station liable to the Broadcasting Ordinance.

"If HKTV adopted the DTMB standard, more than two million households would be able to watch its programmes on TV at home," deputy director-general of telecommunications Danny Lau Kwong-cheung said.

The number would exceed 5,000 households, a threshold which triggers the licensing requirement. No external receiver was needed to watch DTMB transmissions, he added.