Croatia has announced a tender to construct and operate a nationwide GSM (Global System for Mobile communications) network. Bids were due 15 April.
A consortium led by ABN Amro Bank N.V. and N.M. Rothschild & Sons has been appointed to advise the Estonian government in the sale of a 49-percent stake in Eesti Telekom, the state-owned operator, according to The Financial Times.
The winner of Ireland’s third mobile license is supposed to be announced in June.
The government of Kenya has been due to present legislation intended to restructure the Kenya Posts and Telecommunications Corp. to create an autonomous telecom company. KPTC also is reportedly planning to evaluate the need for a second cellular system.
The New Zealand government has announced it will auction PCS (Personal Communications Services) frequencies beginning in mid-1998.
Senegal has launched a tender for a second digital cellular network.
Reuters reported at Global Wireless press time that Spain’s third mobile license tender has attracted just two bidders-Consortia Retevision Movil, which includes Telecom Italia; and Alas, lead by France Telecom. A decision is due in June.
United Kingdom operator Orange Communications SA was the surprise winner of Switzerland’s GSM 1800 license awarded at the end of April, beating competition from British Telecommunications plc, Deutsche Telekom and France Telecom. Orange’s consortium, which includes Germany’s Viag, Swissphone Engineering and a Swiss bank, paid no fee for the license. Winner of the dual-band license awarded in the same contest was the joint venture diAx, which is also building a fixed network to compete with Swisscom. The diAx group, which includes 50 Swiss power utilities and SBC Communications Inc. of the United States, immediately contracted Nokia to supply a turnkey dual-band network.
The government of Turkey has raised US$1 billion from the sale of 25-year cellular licenses to Turkcell, a joint venture including Telecom Finland; and Telsim, 89-percent owned by Turkey’s Rumeli Holding, according to The Wall Street Journal. Turkcell and Telsim are existing operators and had been operating networks since 1994 under a special government permit.
MTN Uganda, a consortium led by South Africa-based Mobile Telecom Network, has won a second Network Operator License from the government of Uganda. MTN will provide both wireline and wireless services.
