Telecoms Minister Issam Naaman stated that the government is going ahead with auctioning at least one cellphone licence each for GSM and the more advanced UMTS systems by the end of September. Parliament is expected to pass a law in July regardless of progress in settling a major dispute with the two existing operators, Cellis and LibanCell, whose combined $2.7bn offer to turn their GSM Build,Operate,Transfer (BOT)contracts into 20-year licenses was turned down by the government. The government broke-off negotiations on new licenses with Lebanon’s operators in May and threatened to cancel their existing contracts if they did not pay $600m in fines and share more revenue with the state.
