The government is to issue six regional licenses for broadband wireless access (BWA) services in the first part of a two-phase licensing plan, the Cabinet announced on Tuesday.
The licenses, to be issued at the end of June, include three each for the northern and southern halves of the country, are valid for six years and can be renewed only once, the Cabinet said, adding that the government expected to earn at least NT$1.26 billion (US$38.07 million) in license fees over the first six years.
The agenda drawn up by the Cabinet-level National Communications Commission states that the government will hold a public hearing on the BWA regulations draft next month, establish the regulations the same month, accept business applications in April and May, and then complete application reviews and bidding processes in June before giving out the licenses.
The northern BWA service region will include Taipei City and county, Taoyuan County, Hsinchu City and county, Miaoli County, Ilan County, Keelung City and the Matsu islands, with the rest of the country forming the southern service region, the NCC said.
Each regional licensee will be allocated a bandwidth of 30 Megahertz within the international standard spectrum range of 2.5 Gigahertz (GHz) to 2.69GHz, and regional operators will be permitted to merge and convert their regional licenses into a nationwide one, the NCC said.
Two of the six licenses will at first be reserved for new players that are not running Type I Telecommunications Enterprise services and will apply the 802.16e standard, unless no such company wins a bid, NCC officials said. The Type I Telecommunications Enterprise refers to businesses that provide telecommunications services with their own connection facilities.
Bidders that combine services and manufacturing industries will be better evaluated during the application review procedure, according to the NCC.
In the bidding process that follows, qualified bidders will compete with their offers of annual license fees, defined as a percentage of their total annual revenues. License fees will be a minimum of NT$20 million for the first year, NT$30 million for the second year and NT$40 million per year from the third through the sixth year, the NCC said.
The Cabinet said in a news release that the issuance of three licenses each in two regions would not only accommodate the current needs of the business sector, but also foster a healthy, competitive environment, provide greater choice for consumers and ensure the the provision of high-quality telecommunications services.
The statement added that in the second phase of the project, at least one additional nationwide license will be issued after June 2009, depending on the progress of phase one mergers.
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