Warid wins licence in Bangladesh
Farid Ahmed, Dhaka: The Bangladesh Telecommunications Regulatory Commission has decided to award the country's sixth mobile phone operation licence to Warid Telecom International LLC of the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

The 40th board meeting of the regulatory commission approved the offer from Warid, a concern of UAE's Dhabi Group, the New Age daily reported Tuesday.

Omniah of Jordan was the other bidder competing for the licence, but its offer was not accepted.

Dhabi group, the owner of Warid, had signed a memorandum of understanding with the Board of Investment in September to invest around $1 billion in various sectors in the country including telecom, tourism and pharmaceuticals.

The regulatory commission had invited proposals on Oct 5 from Bangladeshi companies, joint ventures with local partners or overseas companies with 100 percent foreign investment to set up, maintain and operate GSM telephony for general public use.

The objective of the invitation was to ensure reasonably priced, reliable, competitive and market-based mobile phone environment with a view to improving teledensity in the country.

"The commission will award the licence to the company after finalising the procedures," said the official.

The licence will be given for an initial period of 15 years, covering the entire country. After that, it may be renewed by the commission subject to satisfactory performance.

Warid in 2003 bought a GSM mobile licence in Pakistan through auction for $291 million.

Currently, there are around 7.5 million mobile users in Bangladesh provided for by five mobile operators - GrameenPhone, Aktel, BanglaLink, CityCell and the state-owned Teletalk. Industry insiders said that Bangladesh was likely to see around 17 million subscribers by the end of 2007

Labels: Infrastructure

- posted @ Wednesday, December 07, 2005