LUXEMBOURG-Millicom International Cellular S.A. announced it was awarded an integrated Global System for Mobile communications 900/Digital Cellular System 1800 license in Luxembourg, becoming the country’s second mobile operator.
Millicom will share Luxembourg’s 416,000 population with the current, state-owned telephone company operator, P&T Luxembourg. Millicom said it plans to launch commercial service within six months of the license award, to cover 98 percent of the population, under the brand name Tango.
As a condition of the license award, Millicom must dispose its 50-percent stake in the Luxembourg service provider Mobilux. Luxembourg is considered a small, but lucrative market, as the country’s placement bordering Germany, France and Belgium, make it a roaming hot spot. It is a source of much banking business traffic between these and other European countries and claims the highest Gross National Product per capita on the continent.
Dual-band GSM 900 MHz/DCS 1800 MHz licenses are a tenet of the European Union market liberalization standards necessary for membership. The liberalization process in Europe has a January deadline for EU membership consideration.
Millicom now has a hand in some 20 countries across Europe, Asia, Latin America and Africa.
The company said it has plans to spin off its Asian operations to a new company, Sanbao Telecom. Other major restructuring plans include a strategic review of its Latin American operations and developing some existing and new ventures to another publicly listed vehicle to be called Millicom S.A.
