Saudi Telecom Co. (STC) and Qatar Telecom QSC reached the final phase of Syria’s auction for a third mobile license, Deputy Telecommunications Minister Mohammad Al- Jalali said today.
Emirates Telecommunications Corp., the bigger of two phone companies in the United Arab Emirates, Turkcell Iletisim Hizmetleri AS, Turkey’s biggest mobile-phone operator, and France Telecom SA (FTE), the country’s largest phone company, have pulled out of the race, he said in a interview from Damascus.
The three companies withdrew because they did not agree with some contractual issues, including the 25 percent share in revenue of the Syrian state and its monopoly over infrastructure for seven years, according to a telecommunications ministry statement today. They also objected to their requirements for certain frequencies not being available, it said.
Syria is encouraging private and foreign investment in its state-dominated economy to provide long-term financing for development and economic reforms. To help expand the mobile market, the government last year approved an auction for a third license and decided to change the contracts of the two current operators, Syriatel and MTN Group Ltd. (MTN)’s MTN Syria SA unit, to build-operate-transfer license protocols. MTN is Africa’s biggest mobile-network operator.
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