Egyptian licence deadline pushed back again

Bidders will have to wait a little longer to discover the victor of the second fixed-line licence.

The bid deadline for Egypt’s second fixed-line licence has been postponed again by a further month until July 29, the National Telecom Regulatory Authority(NTRA) confirmed in a statement.

NTRA’s executive president Amr Badawi said the regulator is currently preoccupied negotiating with the country’s three mobile operators regarding new promotional offers, and the issuance of a connectivity draft agreement would be delayed to June 8.

The previous deadline for the submission of bids for Egypt’s second fixed-line licence had been June 19. The regulator has stated that 12 local and international companies have bought the licence specifications and conditions booklet for US$10,000 and submitted an auction guarantee of EGP 10 million (US$1.9m).

The confirmed parties include Atheeb from Saudi Arabia, Orascom Telecom, Egypt’s Alkan Telecom and Giza Systems, Etisalat, France Telecom, Alcatel-Lucent Egypt and Kuwaiti investment firm Noor Financial Company.

Local media reports suggest equipment supplier Ericsson and two Gulf Arab telecoms firms have also bought the conditions booklet.
Consortia that apply to participate in the award process are required to have a base of at least 500,000 subscribers and minimum revenues of US$500m a year, the NTRA advised.