Reliance bids for telecom operations in Pakistan

Indian telecom major, Reliance Infocomm has bid for landline telephone opera-tions
in Pakistan. According to information available from Pakistan Telecommunication
Authority (PTA), the company, along with 72 other players has bid for the Local
Loop (LL) operations.

According to information available from sources, Relia-nce is reported to be
a frontru-nner and if selected, would be the first In dian company to enter
Pakistan's deregulated telecom sector. The licenses are being issued as part
of govern-ment's telecom deregulation policy announced in July last year, to
put an end to Pakistan Telecommunication Ltd's (PTCL's) monopoly on basic
tele-phony. The PTA has also consti-tuted a committee for scrutiny and
short-listing of applications to evaluate the technical and financial viability
of the applicants.

The Pakistan government has fixed a $ 500,000 fee and a performance guarantee
of $ 10 million for long distance and international (LDI) telecom license and a
$ 10,000 fee for LL fixed telecom line.

The new companies, which are required to become ope-rational within 18 months
of the issuance of license, are expe-cted to bring investment of $ 1 billion in
the next two to three years. The PTA also expects that this will help the
country double its present tele-density of 2.8 percent of fixed line during the
same period.

According to available infor-mation, the PTA has received 23 applications for
LDI licenses and 72 for local loop LL. Out of 72 LL applications, 12 compa-nies
have applied to start operations in all the 14 telecom regions of the country.
As per PTA, entry to both the LL and LDI markets would be unrestri-cted and that
the authority would not limit number of companies interested to enter these
markets. The PTA expects to start awarding licensing from the second week of
July.

However, while Reliance Infocomm corporate communi-cation division denied the
news, its representative, Sanjay Kumar Jain, whose name is listed as the contact
person in the PTA site clarified that the company had just purchased the tender
document, but did not apply. This, however, seems unlikely because the PTA site
clearly lists Reliance among the companies that have applied for the license. No
further information was available from the company till the time of filing the
report.

Shubhendu Parth

New Delhi (CyberMedia News)