A battle is brewing over Internet telephony in Hong Kong, with calls coming for the Office of Telecommunications Authority to set up a user-pays system compelling Voice-over Internet Protocol providers to pay network operator PCCW. This came a month after PCCW promised a fight over the OFTA’s September decision not to impose local charges on Internet telephony.
Wharf T&T chairman Stephen Ng said OFTA made the right call letting VoIP services launch and suggested the user-pays system would mean service providers paying fees to the provider of the VoIP service to the user, while OFTA should not butt in on deals between PCCW and other operators, according to a published report.
PCCW has petitioned Hong Kong’s High Court to challenge an OFTA decision letting rival Hong Kong Broadband Network offer cheap local Internet phone services over the PCCW network. OFTA, for its part, has proposed a new fixed-line license to PCCW that would allow Hong Kong’s largest fixed-line telephone company to cut prices without prior approval, the report added, a proposal two other Hong Kong telecoms – City Telecom and New World Telephone – oppose.
Ng opposes that opposition. “Even under the current regulatory ordinance, PCCW still enjoys preferential treatment, so a new license may help us to know more about their marketing strategy,'' he told Hong Kong media. “I don't think a new license would threaten us any more, because they [PCCW] have always granted customers large cuts during the past few years.''
New World has said they’re in “advanced stages” of VoIP testing with an eye toward launching to the mass market. Others are said to believe the Internet telephony question could provoke changes in PCCW’s position as the kingpin player. Hong Kong media is speculating that large-scale Internet telephony could threaten revenues from the switched-phone circuits considered a “bedrock source” of fixed-line revenues.
