The Office of the Communications Authority (“OFCA”) received notification from 21Vianet Mobile that it would cease the provision of its mobile services with effect from 1 February 2019. 21Vianet Mobile undertakes to facilitate its customers to port out their mobile numbers to other mobile service providers for a period of three months.
In view of Lycamobile’s failure to demonstrate capability to resume the provision of service in a satisfactory manner, the Communications Authority has decided not to renew Lycamobile’s licence upon its expiry on 31 July 2018. With effect from 1 August 2018, Lycamobile will no longer be authorised to provide any public telecommunications service in Hong Kong.
A number of mobile network operators and mobile virtual network operators in Hong Kong (“local operators”) are providing SCMN/1C2N services which enable subscribers to enjoy the convenience of using a single SIM card that supports multiple local mobile numbers for use in several places (e.g. Hong Kong, the Mainland and Macau).
Many phone handsets are equipped with calling number display (“CND”), enabling the called party to see the number of the person calling before he/she answers the call. The telephone number shown on the CND is, however, susceptible to be changed/falsified by scammers by means of “caller ID spoofing”. According to the Police, there has been a surge in phone scams lately involving caller ID spoofing. The Police indicates that these phone scams originate from outside Hong Kong.
While charges of other telecommunications services have fallen drastically over the past decade, those for Mobile Voice Roaming Services (MVRS) remain at relatively high levels. Consumers may consider using some more affordable substitutes for MVRS when travelling outside Hong Kong.
The penetration of mobile service in Hong Kong is one of the highest in the world. There are some safety precautions that you should pay attention to when you use your mobile phones, tablet PCs and other mobile communications devices.
If you want to avoid being connected to the more expensive International Direct Dialling (IDD) service using "001" as the access code, every time you make IDD calls overseas, you should key in the preferred access code followed by the telephone number of the called party, or retrieve a stored telephone number of the called party with the preferred access code in the "phonebook" of your telephone / mobile handset.