3G Auction
BTRC extends bid money submission deadline to Aug 29
The telecom regulator has extended the time by two days for depositing bid earnest money to participate in the much-awaited 3G auction scheduled for September 8, said officials.
They said the regulator had refixed August 29 to deposit $20 million as bid earnest money in response to the plea of the five private cellular phone operators which have qualified primarily for the auction.
As per the auction schedule, the operators were supposed to deposit the bid earnest money today.
Talking to BSS, Sunil Kanti Bose, chairman of Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission, said they had taken the decision of extending the deadline, as the operators sought additional two days’ time to complete their necessary preparation.
‘The additional time has been required as the National Board of Revenue is yet to finalise the report on the SIM replacement issue,’ he added.
The BTRC chairman informed the other schedules of the auction remained unchanged.
Officials said the operators had told the regulator that they won’t inform their parent organisations of the SIM replacement issues, as the National Board of Revenue could not finalise the report.
After getting the NBR report, the operators will take final decision of depositing bid earnest money in consultation with their stakeholders, the officials added.
Country’s five private operators — Grameenphone, Banglalink, Robi, Airtel and Citycell — had applied on August 12 for taking part in the auction and declared qualified by the regulator on August 18 after scrutinising their applications.
According to the final 3G/4G/LTE licensing guideline, each eligible operator has to deposit $20 million as bid earnest money to participate in the bidding.
The commission will issue five ‘Cellular Mobile Phone Services (3G/4G/LTE) Operator Licence’ including assignment of spectrum through open auction. Among the five, one licence had been kept for new entrant, but no new operator applied for the licence.
Besides, another four licences would be issued among the existing six operators, of which state-owned Teletalk would be given the licence without its participation in the auction. So, five private operators will run for the rest three licences. Teletalk is now offering 3G service on trial basis.
As any no operator applied in new entrant category, the licence would be awarded to the existing operators, which means one operator among the six would not get the chance for 3G operation, officials said.
Earlier, the regulator had deferred the auction date for the 3G for the third time. The 3G auction was originally set for June 24, but it was refixed on July 31 before being rescheduled for September 2.
On Feb 12, the Ministry of Post and Telecommunication finalised the licensing policy for the 3G services by fixing the value of spectrum $20 million per MHz.
-With New Age input
