ISLAMABAD: The federal government is likely to release an informationmemorandum for the auction of additional telecom spectrum during the firstweek of April.
Sources said that the third meeting of the auction advisory committee willbe held under the chair of Finance Minister Abdul Hafeez Shaikh next weekto finalize matters pertaining to the auction of additional spectrum.Subsequently, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority will release theinformation memorandum for the auction of telecom spectrum, following theauthority will give one-month time to parties to submit their repliesagainst the said memorandum.
PTA had selected one international consultant with regard to auctioning theremaining spectrum of 3G and 4G services in the country. The government isoptimistic that it would generate $1 billion revenue from the auction of anadditional 1800, 2100 MHz bands of spectrum.
On the other hand, the telecom companies are asking the FrequencyAllocation Board as well as Pakistan Telecommunication Authority to solvethe temporary allocation problems before going into the auction.Article continues after this advertisement
Sources said that the government had allocated 6.6MHz as temporaryallotment to Zong with respect to the compensation/cross boarderinterference with the neighbouring country in the 900 MHz band.
That temporary allocation is subjected to specific regions; however, Zongconsiders it for all provinces, sources added.
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Sources said that the temporary allotment problem should be solved beforethe auction as the government might not only get more than $200 million inadditional revenue but the confidence of telecom investors would berestored.
Presently, Jazz and Zong have captured the Pakistani telecom market withover a Rs100 billion revenue on a yearly basis.
The scribe approached the PTA spokesman for comments but no reply wasreceived till the filing of this story.
