Kong Kong’s Office of the Telecommunications Authority (OFTA) has announced two winners of its auction for spectrum in the 850 MHz and 900 MHz bands. SmarTone-Vodafone won 2x5 MHz in the 850 MHz band for HK$875 million (U$112 million), while Hutchison Telephone Company placed the highest bid of HK$1.1 billion for 2x5 MHz at 900 MHz. The 15-year licences oblige winners to cover at least 50% of the population of Hong Kong within five years. Total proceeds from the auction reached HK$1.95 billion.

The Office of the Telecommunications Authority ("OFTA") announced today (3 March 2011) that two operators have successfully bid for a total of 20 MHz of radio spectrum in the 850 MHz and 900 MHz Bands respectively, at a total sum of spectrum utilization fees ("SUF") of HK$1.952 billion.
"The mobile telecommunications service market has continued to boom in recent years.  Take mobile data as an example.  Total mobile data usage has witnessed an explosive growth with a year-on-year increase of 189%, from 638 terabytes in December 2009 to 1,847 terabytes in December 2010.  The assignment of the radio spectrum through the auction enables the successful bidders to make use of the newly acquired spectrum to expand their existing networks with additional network capacity to meet the market demand.  This is conducive to the further healthy development of the mobile market in Hong Kong," a spokesperson of OFTA said.

Five mobile network operators and one fixed network operator took part in the spectrum auction.  Conducted on an Internet-based software platform, the auction commenced on 28 February 2011 and was completed this afternoon after a total of forty one bidding rounds over four days.  The provisional successful bidders, the radio spectrum bid and the SUF determined in the auction are tabulated below:

"The Telecommunications Authority issued a provisional successful bidder notice today.  Each of the provisional successful bidders, after payment of the SUF and submission of the performance bond within thirty business days after the issue of the notice, will be assigned the acquired spectrum under a 15-year unified carrier licence.  The licensees will be required to provide coverage of their networks and services for areas with at least 50% of the population of Hong Kong for each of the Frequency Bands assigned to them within five years from the grant of the licences," the spokesperson of OFTA added.