Third mobile telephony license disputed by competitors

The third individual license that will offer the right to provide cellular mobile telephony services in the GSM 900/1800 standard is disputed by three competitors. „Вымпел - Коммуникации» (БИЛАЙН) from the Russian Federation and two other companies from Chisinau: “Uniton-Prim” Ltd and the Joint Company “Eventis mobile” Ltd, submitted the participation offers at the National Regulatory Agency for Telecommunications and Informatics (ANRTI) on November 15. The opening for the participation offers took place at the headquarters of ANRTI on December 30 in a joint public sitting of the contest commission and its working group. The representatives of the bidders and of the media took part in the sitting. Stanislav Gordea, the deputy chairman of ANRTI said that the “Tender Book” had been purchased by 6 companies before December 1 for USD 5 thousand. At the moment when the winner will be named, December 26, the contest committee will publicise the conditions the third operator must fulfil. According to Gordea the competition in the telecommunications field is good for consumers: it is expected that the services will be diversified and the tariffs will decrease. At the first stage (pre-selection of bidders), the working group has to examine the documents submitted by the bidders, estimating if they comply with the minimum requirements presented in the tender book. The contest commission will announce the bidders who were accepted on December 22. Subsequently, the group will evaluate and examine the proposals of the admitted bidders. The evaluation of the offers will be performed using the “points method”. The Individual License on GSM 900/1800 Cell Mobile Telephony Service Provision will be awarded for a 15-year period, with the possibility of subsequent renewal, in accordance with the legislation in force. In accordance with the Government Decision from October 17 the license fee has been fixed at the amount of USD 8 mln. At present two mobile telephony operators work in Moldova in the GSM 900 standard – “Voxtel” and “Moldocell”. “Voxtel” JSC launched its network of mobile telephony in 1998 and “Moldcell” JSC – in April 2000. ANRTI offered “Moldtelecom” JSC one more cell mobile telephony license in the CDMA 2000 standard, 450 MHz frequency.