A pessimistic Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has dropped the idea of hiring consultants to attract new investments in the auction for Next Generation Mobile Services (NGMS) spectrum (3G/4G).
“There is no chance of new telecom operator/entrant as the market is already consolidating”, said a senior official of PTA while speaking with ProPakistani.
“Though PTA has sought applications through national and international media for the upcoming spectrum auction, apparently no new telecom player will bid for the auction”, said the official adding that the process to be employed by the Authority for auction of 850MHz spectrum will be open outcry auction in case if demand is more than the available spectrum.
Fearing poor response from the market, PTA had earlier decided to hire two types of consultancy services of internationally repute for market assessment and marketing of spectrum auction.
The first consultant(s)/consulting firm was required to conduct the market study/analysis to advise PTA on future auction of the spectrum (850MHz, 1800MHz) in accordance with the RFP.
The Interconnect Communications was the lowest bidder and was selected for the market assessment and on its report; the government dropped the idea to go for auction of all unsold spectrum i.e. 850MHz and 1800MHz simultaneously.
Then there was a need of second consultant for marketing purposes to attract new investments for the spectrum auction of NGSM.
For the second consultancy contract two consultant firms including Value Partners Management Consulting Limited UK (VMPCL) and C21 World were short listed and their technical evaluation was also reportedly completed.
However, since there’s zero percent chance of any new entrant, PTA decided not to hire second consultant to market the spectrum auction.
Not to mention, Value Partners (VMPCL) had provided consultancy services for the previous 3G/4G auction to PTA held in April 2014.
It was obvious that no new entrant will go for a single 10 MHz spectrum of 850 MHz to enter in already sold out market. Because on a Single 10 MHz spectrum it is impossible to run all call, sms and data (any ONE from 2G, 3G or LTE) services. So technically entry of a new operator with this auction was out of question.
And the funny part is existing operators are not seem to be interested in this spectrum. After Merger with Warid, Mobilink has lot of available spectrum to continue its 3G and LTE operations. Zong already has 10 MHz spectrum for 3G and LTE each. And It looks most probable that telenor has no mood to invest this much of money in Pakistan as their all focus is now on India, Although they Should give tough competion to Mobilink and Zong in LTE by going for this spectrum due to there large number of Market share. But Chances are rare.
On the other hand Ufone is busy making TV adds.
it is ok if they just use LTE on it and put voice on VoLTE.
That means new company will offer services only on LTE (Voice, Data and Text). But Question is how many percent of users hold LTE devices? Is market ready for this? And Answer is BIG NO
VoLTE is a service being used in most developed countries only right now.
Market is ready if you dont include people using basic phones. Many people have 4g phones now. New or used, both.
Exactly and all lte supported phones are not VoLTE or VoIP supported , check on wikipedia VoIP or VoLTE
Ufone/ptcl knows well no matter how bad service we are going to offer people will stick , due to our market position. They are sending 3g internet users to websites infected with viruses. Many pop-up ads open and they say download this download that. PTA even doesn’t give a damn about them. Sad reality.
stopped using ufone 3g due to this reason. at first I thought that my browser is infected. these adds don’t even let you to browse a simple ad free website like Wikipedia. switched to Telenor and zong such a relief I felt when I came to know that my laptop is not infected . reason was ufone 3g
I am using ufone just because of their super card and most of my contacts have ufone too.
PTA ab kon c aayaat parrh rahi ha merger pay , mahina guzar jany laga ha approval k liy apply kiy hoy , L
I am sure after panama no one is stupid enough to bribe them. Laws in Pakistan can be easily twisted but in other countries they even fine companies who give bribes to officials of other countries.
Telenor & ufone MUSTTT acquire 4G spectrum or they are gone