China Mobile Hong Kong has won the territory’s mobile TV spectrum auction with a bid of HK$175 million ($22.5m).
The operator, a 100%-owned subsidiary of the mainland China giant, will be awarded a 15-year license, the regulator, Ofta, said Tuesday.
It outbid IPTV operators PCCW and City Telecom to grab the 678 – 686 MHz frequencies in the two-day auction.
Ofta said it would be required to use “at least 75%” of the transmission capacity to deliver mobile TV content, and to provide service coverage to at least 50% of the Hong Kong population within 18 months.
A spokesperson said the company had not decided which technology it would deploy in the network.
However, China Mobile’s parent company offers a mobile TV service in mainland China using CMMB, a technology developed by state broadcast regulator SARFT.
SARFT subsidiary China Satellite Mobile Broadcasting has rolled out the CMMB network in 317 cities.
CMMB uses the range 2.6GHz and the 470–800MHz UHF bands.
Ofta said it had allocated the mobile TV frequency range in coordination with mainland China digital TV spectrum plan.
Hong Kong has four free-to-air TV channels and three pay TV operators.
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