Batelco has been officially invited to bid for the license of the new Iraqi mobile network. A delegation from Batelco headed by Ali Janahi, General Manager for New Business Development and for Batelco Middle East, have attended the conference that took place in Jordan last Thursday July 31, 2003, for the official tender.
There were over 400 participants from several telecom companies at the conference. During the conference a number of issues were raised by the participants particularly the one to five percent ownership of governments in telecom and mobile companies. "The Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) realized that by having this condition in the tender, they will bar most of the mobile companies in the Middle East, who almost all have more than five percent government ownership. For this reason the CPA has decided to reconsider this particular clause and has decided to change it to allow these companies to bid," said Regional Operations Manager, Batelco Rashid Al-Snan.
The CPA has requested from the successful bidders to pay a fee of a total of five million dollar for all three regions in Iraq. The licensees would also have to pay the CPA a performance bond of $30 million to ensure the successful roll-out of the network during the first six months of deployment.
During the conference, the CPA announced that they would select the licensees according to geographical coverage of the region, capacity roll-out, delivery of service, roaming capabilities and cost of service to the end user. — (menareport.com)
© 2003 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
