The government of the Republic of Hungary is instituting a new system for the collecting of mobile frequency fees, including incentives for the three incumbent cellcos, as it seeks to boost inward investment in the country’s infrastructure. Bloomberg quotes Annamaria Szalai, the president of the National Media and Infocommunications Authority (NMHH), as saying that under the new charging regime – which came into effect on 1 April 2011 – mobile network operators will pay fees based on their specific usage of the frequencies and effectively will be allowed a 50% discount in return for carrying out ‘significant’ investment in their infrastructure. Until now, the service providers in question – T-Mobile, Telenor (formerly Pannon) and Vodafone – have paid fees based on the number of base transceiver stations (BTS) they operated, she said.
Commenting on the regime change, Christopher Mattheisen, the CEO of Magyar Telekom which controls T-Mobile, said that while his firm would only be paying ‘a little less’ under the new payment structure, it marks a step forward in that it ‘removes the obstacles to the development of the mobile internet market’.