Hong Kong Announces Spectrum Release Plan

Hong Kong’s Communications Authority (CA) has published its Spectrum Release Plan (SRP) for 2017 – 2019 following consultation with the industry through the Radio Spectrum and Technical Standards Advisory Committee of the Office of the Communications Authority (OFCA).

“Spectrum is a scarce public resource and its supply is by no means limitless. Currently, all the 552 MHz of spectrum which is available and is subject to competitive demand has been assigned to mobile network operators for the provision of public mobile telecommunications services. As to the 34.6 MHz of spectrum in the 2 GHz band which is held in reserve, it can be readily released to the market upon expression of interest by any industry player,” said a spokesperson for the Communications Authority.

Though the latest SRP has not identified any new spectrum for public mobile services between 2017 and 2019, the CA and OFCA have been working on making available more spectrum to the industry to cope with the continuous development of public mobile services in 2020 and onwards.

“Looking ahead, there will be several sources of supply of new spectrum, both in low frequency and high frequency bands, for the provision of public mobile services including the coming fifth generation (5G) services in the time frame of 2020,” the spokesperson added.

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) is spearheading efforts on spectrum harmonisation in higher frequency bands for the provision of high-speed, high-capacity and low-latency 5G services. (C+T Mag)