The Telecommunications (Carrier Licences) (Amendment) Regulation 2003 is expected to bring down the operational cost of licensees investing in cables and satellites.

The regulation has been gazetted today and will be tabled in the Legislative Council on May 28. It proposes to reduce the annual fee for fixed-carrier licences from $1 million to $500,000.

A public consultation exercise on the proposed reduction from April 17 to May 9 attracted 13 submissions. Seven came from external services operators and six from other telecoms operators.

All the fixed-carrier licencees operating external telecoms services supported the idea.