Hong Kong’s Office of the Communications Authority (OFCA) yesterday announced that the territory’s five existing mobile network operators successfully bid for a total of 50MHz of mobile spectrum in the 2.5GHz/2.6GHz band, paying combined fees of HKD1.54 billion (USD198 million) for their 15 year licences. The new spectrum augments existing multi-band resources – including 2.5GHz/2.6GHz frequencies already used for LTE – held by all five operators, and will provide the necessary network capacities to further develop 4G services in Hong Kong, OFCA declared. The open auction commenced on 18 March 2013 and was concluded after 18 bidding rounds.
Genius Brand (the 4G network sharing joint venture of Hutchison [3] and PCCW) won frequency band A1 (2515MHz-2520MHz paired with 2635MHz-2640MHz) for spectrum utilisation fees (SUF) of HKD290 million.
SmarTone won band A2 (2520MHz-2525MHz paired with 2640MHz-2645MHz) for SUF of HKD330 million, plus band A3 (2525MHz-2530MHz paired with 2645MHz-2650MHz) for SUF of HKD310 million – a total SUF of HKD640 million.
China Mobile Hong Kong won band A4 (2530MHz-2535MHz paired with 2650MHz- 2655MHz) for SUF of HKD300 million.
CSL won band A5 (2535MHz-2540MHz paired with 2655MHz-2660MHz) for SUF of HKD310 million.
OFCA noted that the average SUF in the auction, HKD30.8 million per MHz, is about 80% higher than that obtained in the auction of the same frequency band held in January 2009, reflecting the increasing value of radio spectrum.