The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission has announced that there are five bidders for the country's three 3G licenses. This is higher than had been anticipated, with expectation of just three of the existing networks submitting bids.
The interested parties are the incumbent GSM networks, the Technology Resources Industries backed, Celcom, Time dotCom through its TIMESat subsidiary, Telekom Malaysia and Maxis Communications through the bidding name UMTS (Malaysia) - along with new entrant, the Application Services Provider E-Touch Sdn Bhd.
The licenses are being awarded through a beauty contest method, with each 15-year licence being offered for the fixed fee of US$13.2 million. There may be some controversy though as Telekom Malaysia is bidding, as is Celcom, in which Telekom recently increased its holding to 15.6% and has said that it wants to merge the two companies mobile phone networks.'"
Posted to the site on 30th May 2002
Posted to: www.cellular-news.com/story/6834.php