Companies interested in acquiring a 4G licence in Macau have until 18 November to submit their bids, the country's regulator announced on Wednesday.

There will be four licences available for the provision of LTE services, the Direccao dos Servicos de Regulacao de Telecomunicacoes (DSRT) revealed.

The licences will be valid for eight years and licensees will be required to pay 5% of their annual revenues to the government, an official state bulletin added.

The regulator will sell spectrum for the FDD variant of LTE in the 1700/1800-MHz and 2.5/2.6-GHz bands and frequencies for TD-LTE at 2.3/2.4 GHz.

Successful bidders will be required to launch commercial services during 2015. Their networks must cover 50% of Macau's territory next year and the remainder in 2016. Macau, a special administrative region of China, covers around 30 square kilometres.

It is home to four mobile operators. Three operate WCDMA networks: the incumbent Companhia de Telecomunicações de Macau (CTM), owned by CITIC Telecom International; Hutchison Whampoa's 3; and Hong Kong-based SmarTone. China Telecom has a CDMA2000 network in Macau.

The contest is not restricted to Macau's existing operators though, the regulator said.

Bids will be opened on 19 November.