Qatar's telecom regulator ictQATAR has extended the closing date for applications for its second fixed-line telephone licence to April 17th following requests from several of the interested bidders.
ictQATAR executive director William Fagan said some eight bidders were already in the fray. They are AT&T (US), Batelco (Bahrain), British Telecom - through a regional subsidiary - (UK), Eutelia (Italy), Jordan Telecom - Orange/France Telecom - (Jordan /France), PCCW (Hong Kong), Verizon (US) and Vodafone (UK).
He said the winner of the beauty contest was expected to be announced in May. The service roll out will be next year because it takes a longer time to set up the fixed line network than the mobile phone infrastructure.
In another move, he also announced that the second fixed line operator in Qatar will also be given a WiMAX licence. Speaking to Gulf Times yesterday ictQATAR executive director William Fagan said the decision was taken because ""Qatar is too small to have a separate WiMAX licensee.""
"Qatar is too small for a WiMAX operator to compete with two fixed line operators," Fagan said. He said: "We thought if the second operator can combine the WiMAX with the fibre that is going to be put into Lusail and The Pearl Qatar, we can complement the two services."
Fagan said ictQATAR's decision was guided by the State's overall interest. "We want to see a very healthy competition in the market. We don't want to see the second fixed line operator dying. We want to see surviving entities," he said.
Asked whether the decision to package WiMAX with the second fixed line licence would be a disincentive to Qtel, Fagan said, "No, Qtel can also offer WiMAX if it wants. We have allotted them the spectrum to offer WiMAX. When Qtel also offers WiMAX, you will have two technologies competing which will be good for the market as a whole."
Posted to the site on 31st March 2008
Posted to: www.cellular-news.com/story/30193.php