The Government of Macau Special Administrative Region(MSAR) is going to accept applications for the provisional licences of the public mobile service in the MSAR. Before the establishment of legal framework in area of the communications by the end of this year, the Government of MSAR is going to issue in maximum three Provisional Licences, the decision of which depends on the adequacy of the submitted applications, the justification on the market share and the availability of radio spectrum.

The Provisional License entitles the licensee to install and operate in the MSAR a mobile service network with implementation of number portability, including also the possibility of building its own mobile service internaitonal gateway , which will provide service to the general public, on a fair competing and non-discriminatory ground with the incumbent operator and other licensees.

The Secretary for Transport and Public Works , Mr. Ao Man Long, presented today (2 June) in the press conference the consultation paper of the Specification for the Submission of Applications for the Provisional Licences of the Public Mobile Service in the MSAR. He emphasized that the Government would like to solicit the opinion of the operators of Macau , Hong Kong and foreign countries with regard to the consultation paper. After collecting opinions of consultation , the present text may be altered according to the needs concerned and hopefully the final version of the Specification could be released by the end of this month and the Government will start to accept applications and proposals in next month.

The Government of MSAR will analyse and rate the submitted applications and proposals, based on the criteria, such as the investment committed , financial background, technical capability, grade of service to be offered, etc.. If the work is in schedule, it is expected to issue the Provisional Licence in October.

The concession contract on public telecommuncations services of the Companhia de Telecomunicações de Macau was revised in the end of last year, some services which had been previously provided in monopoly were liberalized. The public mobile service is the first to introduce competition.

At present, there are around 120,000 users of mobile telephone in Macau, with a penetration rate of less than 30%.