Rentals of circuit service reduced in 2013 and 2014

The rental of circuit service charged by Companhia de Telecomunicações de Macau (CTM) is too expensive, Business Daily reported earlier this week, quoting a telecommunications industry source. However, in a written email reply to Business Daily’s inquiry received yesterday, the Bureau of Telecommunications Regulation (DSRT) said that both in 2013 and 2014, CTM had reduced the prices for this service. ‘Since the full market liberalisation of telecommunications services in 2012, the same company [CTM] has decreased, in 2013 and 2014, the tariffs for renting local and international circuits’, DSRT said. ‘Together with the joining of a new operator for the fixed public telecommunications network, we believe that the effect of interaction between the governmental inspection and the strength of the market will increase the competition regarding tariffs and quality of services’, the Bureau added. DSRT is addressing the accusation that other operators in the telecommunications market feel the tariff to rent CTM’s circuit services is too expensive for them to make a profit while CTM is exempted from competition. Different situation Our industry source has told us that in some cases the tariffs for the use of the circuit service are ten times more expensive than in Hong Kong. However, on this point DSRT said that a fair assessment of the prices couldn’t be done in an apple-with-apple comparison. ‘Regarding the prices for the telecommunication services, it cannot be assessed, in an objective way, through a direct comparison of the amounts alone, as it is necessary to take into consideration the different social situations between the different regions as well as the size of the markets’, DSRT explained. As the company managing the telecommunications public concession assets, CTM provides the rented circuit service to other players in the market. This circuit is used to transmit communication information and is essential for the operators to function. In providing this service, CTM charges a tariff, which is approved by the government. Inventory list received The Midterm Review of the Concession Agreement of Public Telecommunications signed by the government and CTM stipulates that until the end of 2011 the Macau-based company had to send an inventory with detailed information of concession assets, defined in the contract as ‘the whole of the facilities assigned to the provision of the public telecommunications services’ including ducts, copper, cables and so on. In early January of this year, legislator Chan Meng Kam delivered a written interpellation in the Legislative Assembly requesting the government clarify if the inventory had already been delivered. DSRT confirmed yesterday that the inventory list had been received, as the company had told Business Daily before. ‘CTM followed the Midterm Review of the Concession Agreement of Public Telecommunications and presented to the government the inventory, where the concession assets are included in order to be assessed and approved’, DSRT said. The details of these assets are essential for the MSAR as by the end of the concession CTM is required to hand these assets back to the government.