Ukraine to Auction Off One 3G License by Year-End

­The Ukrainian telecoms regulator, the National Communications Regulatory Commission (NCRC) has announced plans to sell a single 3G license later this year. The license, which will be valid for fifteen years will have a reserve price of UAH 400 million and the auction is due to start on November 30th. The license will award 25Mhz of radio spectrum to the winner.

The regulator also said that it plans to sell three more 3G licenses in the future, without specifying a timeline.

However, the lack of visibility for the future tenders has caused Ukrainian Mobile Communications (UMC) to issue a statement condemning the auction process.

"The NCRC did not make the best decision. The tender is non-transparent. We don't have any information on future tenders for the remainder of the radio frequency spectrum, and the possible price of the lot depends on this," read comments of the operator, which has been given to Interfax-Ukraine.

Currently, there is one 3G license which is held by state-owned, Ukrtelecom. The company was granted its license in 2005 without an open tender but has not signed up significant subscribers since its launch in 2007. At the time, the company said that it planed to invest US$700 million in the development of its 3G network by 2010.

The country has six mobile networks, and based on figures from the Mobile World subscriber tracker, their market shares are: Kyivstar (41%); UMC (32.9%); Astelit (21.6%) and a distant forurth is Ukrainian Radio Systems (3.6%). Ukrtelecom and Golden Telecom both have less than 1% each.

On the web: Kyiv Post - Mobile World

Posted to the site on 30th September 2009