Taiwan's telecommunications authorities are mulling hiking the volume of bid deposits of the six consortiums now competing for domestic third-generation (3G) mobile phone licenses, it was reported yesterday.
The Directorate General of Telecommunications has agreed to hold a meeting on Wednesday to discuss increasing the value of bid deposits, now standing at NT$1 billion (US$28.57 million) for each bidder, a Chinese-language newspaper said.
The proposal raised by the bidders themselves was aimed to force some to bow out as the hard-fought process moved into its 16th day, it said.
A total of 152 rounds of bidding have been held and, if no bidders back down today, Taiwan would surpass Britain in the number of bidding rounds to be held for 3G license bidders, it said.
The six contestants have raised their bids to total a combined NT$45.59 billion over the weekend.
The government has set a floor price for the five licenses at a total of NT$33.6 billion.
However, concerns have been growing that high bids at the auctions could be too costly for the companies that secured the licenses.
The bidding process will continue today.
Thus far, the preliminary winners of the licenses were: Chunghwa Telecom Co (
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications has said domestic 3G operators are unlikely to launch services before the first quarter of 2003, which will allow speedy access to data and video through the Internet.
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