Portugal’s telecommunications authority, Instituto das Comunicacoes de Portugal, is expected to issue a mobile phone license at 1800 MHz, for service to begin next year.
A Digital Cellular Services 1800 operator will be selected based on technical and financial abilities and the public interest, said Casimiro de Jesus, commercial attache at the U.S. Embassy in Lisbon, Portugal.
Portuguese companies potentially interested in the license include SIBS, Sonae, a large banking and industrial group; Compta, a large hardware and software information technologies company with telecom interests; and SIBS-Sociedade Interbancaria de Servicos, an automated teller machine operator currently working with cellular provider Telecel to set up mobile ATM service.
Foreign companies are permitted to bid on the licenses, noted de Jesus.
Portuguese citizens, particularly in the business sector, consider it important to privatize, said de Jesus. The government has declared its intent to privatize in telecommunications, but the process is moving very slowly, he added.
As a member of the European Union, Portugal is required to issue a DCS 1800 license by next January.
Portugal has two cellular operators, Telcomunicacoes Moveis Nacionais SA and Telecel. TMN introduced analog cellular service in 1989 using a private technology, called C450, at 450 MHz. Both operators introduced Global System for Mobile communications service in 1992. TMN is owned by the Portuguese Post Telephone and Telegraph authority and Marconi of the United Kingdom.
Telecel was established in 1991 and is owned by Portuguese financial firms Grupo Espirito Santo and Grupo Amorim, each with 37.5 percent, and AirTouch International, with 23 percent.
At the end of 1996, Washington-based Strategis Group reported Portugal had 582,000 cellular subscribers, most on GSM networks. Telecel and TMN claim about an equal number of subscribers.
