Pakistan Telecommunication Authority has announced that it is likely to auction a 800 Mhz cellular license for Pakistan in March 2012.
Without revealing the modalities and procedures for the said auction, PTA said that this announcement is to alert the interested investor before time.
Announcement came after Yousaf Raza Gillani, Prime Minister of Pakistan, approved the auction of a cellular license freed by InstaPhone, during a cabinet meeting last month.
It was decided in meeting that new international players as well as existing operators would also be invited for Instaphpne license auction being the sixth of the existing licensee in the country and not a new licensee.
This auction, if goes successful, is believed to bring USD 291 million as inflows for government of Pakistan.
Pakistan Telecommunication Authority had earlier terminated InstaPhone’s license in October 2008 for not paying the license renewal fee and other charges valuing more than Rs. 7.9 billion. InstaPhone had moved to IHC and then supreme court against PTA’s determination to get a stay order on it.
However Both the appeals were dismissed by the court and PTA’s determination was upheld. However, the court extended the date for making the outstanding payment by InstaPhone to 6 May 2009. InstaPhone license was eventually scrapped when company failed to make the due payment.
GSM or CDMA?
i think it would be TDMA.
if i am not wrong.
I think its going to be GSM, because no one will use TDMA now…
MoMoo!! wake up!! TDMA is long gone! welcome to the 21st century
Are they crazy? Preferring quantity over quality, what are they thinking, PTA official earlier said that this market have space only for four operators. Fifth is way too much for competition and 6th is murder for this industry. I am quite sure that this is going to make this telco market a mess.
Wow finally licenses to be auctioned. It would be interesting to watch as to which cellular company go es for and places a higher bid on these bands in order to improve the quality of their service.
simple is that govt. is in need of $$$
Vodafone aanay wala he Pakistan mia.
If Vodafone is here, it will make have mobile phone service more expensive. Multinational companies have trends for doing so.
4 Paragraph there is mistake “Instaphpne”
It’d be GSM for sure. Running CDMA/TDMA network in present era is for cellular usage is bit odd way. Injecting a CDMA network among 5 GSM carriers means another (flop) Instaphone is on its way!
Most important questions are; Who will bid for this new License? Will they also bid for 3G License?
It is ridiculous as PTA is also licensing Mobile Broadband & 3G/4G/LTE in March also. When there is strong competition why some will opt old technology? It isn’t better to opt 3G license?
I think they will couple this license and auction it AS a 3G/4G license..No new operator would like to come in for 2.5G at this time, and the auctioning would be a fail if 3G not offered with it!
march has gone by and still no news….