5G regulation and law in Macau SAR

This chapter was kindly submitted by DSL Lawyers.

The Postal and Telecommunications Office – “PTO”) first announced the introduction of 5G in 2018, but had to delay it by four years in order to create more convergent and updated legislation, and also due to the Covid-19 pandemic. 

In June 2022, the government launched a public tender for 5G networks and corresponding land mobile public use telecommunications services publishing the tender regulations by Chief Executive Order no. 27/2022. In November 2022, the government awarded two operators (out of four possible licences) with eight-year 5G licences: 1) «Companhia de Telecomunicações de Macau, S.A.R.L.» (or “CTM”) by means of Licence No. 1/2022, and 2) «CHINA TELECOM (MACAU) COMPANY LIMITED» (or “China Telecom”), by means of Licence No. 2/2022. Although the 5G network is available for public use, the government has yet to draft new telecoms laws or regulations to support telecommunications development or urban planning.

According to the five-year plan annexed to its 5G Licence, CTM commits to 99% outdoor coverage from 2023 and to 70%-90% indoor coverage between 2023 and 2024. CT commits to outdoor coverage of 93% in 2023 increasing to 99.5% by 2027, and indoor coverage of 85%-97% between 2023 and 2027.

Yes, operators are monetising their 5G investments, and both CTM and CT are offering 5G consumer mobile service plans.

Before operators can launch 5G services, the government must approve a 5G pricing structure. The government has said it aims to lower the prices of commercial 5G compared to 4G, at least during the promotional period, but currently the fees are slightly higher than those for 4G.

5G has yet to launch for industrial purposes.

The existing 5G licences do not specify the purposes of the licensed services and can cover those for industrial purposes.

PTO has not issued any guidelines on 5G for industrial purposes.

Range and coverage are not a significant issue in Macau due to its small geographical size.

In our research we found that JCDecaux (Macau) Limited has been awarded a 15-year exclusive contract for the supply, installation, maintenance and management of urban furniture (urban information panels and bus stop shelters),  covering the entire inventory of about 150 bus shelters and 150 city information panels (CIPs). According to the contract, the supplier “must make available, in the form of a free lease, in the bus stop shelter, a space for the installation of equipment of the entity providing mobile telecommunications services (…), in order to increase the coverage of the 5G network (…)”.

Radio spectrum is part of the public domain of the Macau Government, and the PTO is responsible for managing the radio electric spectrum, frequency allocation, and defining and supervising usage conditions.

In preparation for the launch of 5G services, PTO confirmed and published a 5G spectrum plan in 2018, and then included more mobile frequency bands in 2022.

Currently, the 3G and 4G networks mainly use the lower frequency bands between 800 MHz and 2,700 MHz. The low frequency band has wider coverage, but there is less spectrum resource, and the achievable data transmission rate is relatively low. At present, the frequencies for 5G services are 703-743 / 758-798 MHz, 3.3-3.4 GHz, 3.4-3.6 GHz, 4.8-4.93 GHz, 24.25-27.5 GHz, 27.5-28.35 GHz, etc., among which 3.3-3.4 GHz, 3.4-3.6 GHz, 4.8-4.93 GHz, 24.25-27.5 GHz and 27.5-28.35 GHz. These are in the mid and high frequency bands, which have more spectrum resource, and the achievable data transmission rate is higher but with less coverage.

The PTO does not provide public information on how it awards frequency bands to operators. There are no public tenders and according to industry information, there are no guidelines or established criteria for awarding spectrum licences.

There are no publicly available conditions for the spectrum licence, other than the requirement for operators to have a relevant licence.

The pricing is generally calculated on a per kHz basis. The price list is published and updated from time to time.

There have been no announcements about future tenders.

The government’s priority is to enact a new convergent Telecommunications Law, and it is subsequently expected to update licensing regulations.

Besides the licence-specific provisions mentioned, there are no 5G specific rules enacted or drafted.

Given the recent implementation of the 5G projects, we are not aware of any issues or any cases of non-compliance.

Currently, there are no focused 5G network or spectrum sharing regulations.

Because there are only two licensed 5G operators, no 5G network or spectrum sharing agreements are in place.

The 2022 public tender for 5G services deployment only admitted companies with existing licences to operate public terrestrial mobile telecommunications networks.

It is very unlikely that new competitors will enter the market (which is small in scale) in the foreseeable future.

The Macau Legislative Council approved a Cybersecurity Law in 2019, which aims to prevent threats to computer networks and critical infrastructure, and proposes that companies operating in 12 vital industry sectors enforce protection measures, with mandatory notification mechanisms.

As a Special Administrative Region of the PRC, there have been no comments in connection with the use of Chinese technology.