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Catching up: PTA likely to put 4G spectrum on sale

KARACHI:
In addition to the already proposed third-generation (3G) cellular technology, Islamabad is likely to sell 4G spectrum as it carries out the much-awaited licence auction for the next-generation mobile internet services this March.

“The Information Memorandum (IM) is in its final stages and includes recommendation for selling some spectrum in 1,800 megahertz (MHz), a popular band for 4G technology,” a well-informed source told The Express Tribune on condition of anonymity.

The IM is the main policy document that carries details relating to the spectrum auction. A team of international consultants from Value Partners Management Consulting Limited and Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) – the telecom sector’s regulatory body responsible for executing the auction – is working on finalising this important document.

To be published anytime this month, the IM is one of the final steps leading to the auction ceremony.

“The recommendation for 4G spectrum will be subject to the government’s approval but PTA is very optimistic about a positive response,” the official said, hinting this would only be a formality.

The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) government had already promised jumping on to the advance 4G technology in its election manifesto.

As per last year’s policy directive of the Ministry of IT and Telecommunication, the PML-N government had decided to allocate 30 MHz paired spectrum in the 1,900-2,100 MHz band for next-generation mobile networks. As opposed to calling it 3G, the government had termed the auction as technology neutral – meaning the operator would decide whether to launch 3G or 4G.

However, experts say the proposed 1,900-2,100 MHz band is the most famous one for 3G service – an indication the country would receive the same.

Experts argue that while Pakistan had been struggling to roll out 3G services, more than 160 countries launched this technology, taking the number of active 3G subscriptions to nearly two billion. The country is behind many other countries, which are moving towards 4G and 5G by now.

If approved by the government, the decision to sell 4G spectrum would be in line with what the experts have been suggesting lately.

“Along with 3G, the government should auction whatever spectrum is available in the 4G band because it is in the greater national interest,” former chief of Universal Services Fund and an expert on information communications technology, Parvez Iftikhar, said.

By putting 4G spectrum on auction, the government would be able to raise a higher amount and the consumers would get advanced technology at the same time, Iftikhar said. The government expects to raise $2 billion from the auction process while it has already set a conservative target of $1.2 billion.

It is justified to ask for 4G, which already covers 20% of the global population and is projected to cover half the world by 2017, Iftikhar wrote in one of his columns published in this newspaper.

There will be nearly a billion 4G connections by 2017 with one in five mobile broadband connections to be 4G/LTE, leaping from the current 176 million, he said.

3G is much cheaper for the ultimate users because of the economies of scale, according to Iftikhar, but 4G offers higher speed – much needed for future needs of the consumers and their machines.

Wireless broadband would become available immediately and cheaply through 3G while actual groundwork would begin for 4G, if auctioned, Iftikhar said. “Even if we sell 4G spectrum today, it will take the service providers about a year to launch the service,” he added.
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Credit must be given where it is due.
Good of them that they considered our needs & requirements, right on time.
High time for 3G, if we can skip it altogether.
Sell it today Mr.PTA so, that we can plan our year long wait.

 
If this happens it will be a very good step from Ganja as Zaradari delayed it by 5 years in search of his own commission. It would be really grateful to see if they also introduce 1800mhz-2400mhz spectrum for 4G/LTE.
 
Schedule for 3/4G licences’ auction
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The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority last week kickstarted the 90 day-long arduous process for auctioning six licences spectrums in the 2,100, 1,800 and 850 MHz range by publishing the ‘information memorandum’ on its website. It will enable companies to provide next generation telecom services across the country.

The date of the document’s publication coincided with the annual mega gathering of the telecom sector — Mobile World Congress — held this year in Barcelona, aptly themed ‘creating what’s next’.

A delegation of relevant officials from the PTA and IT and communication ministry, along with executives from private telecom companies, visited the gathering to explore opportunities and identify challenges facing the sector.

Dr Miftah Ismail, chairman of the Board of Investment, reminded that the government hopes to raise $1.6bn from the sale of licences in the current fiscal. “The floor price in each category of the licence has already been notified. We are keeping our fingers crossed and hoping against hope to fetch a decent deal,” he said.

Other senior officials were reluctant to share specifics regarding the possible price that each category will fetch, or about who could possibly win them. “We are not allowed to speculate as it would undermine transparency requirements of the process,” an officer of the ministry of IT and communication told Dawn.

Another officer engaged in the auction process said it involved intricate technicalities and signals the country’s movement towards harmonising systems and sectors with international advancement.

“It is a hopeful moment for the economy and the country. The impact of the deal is expected to be felt not just by immediate beneficiaries of the deal: telcos and the government. The market, and technology-driven changes in the telecom sector, have a deep imprint on the society, and progress will accentuate this trend,” Azmat Ali Ranjha, a senior official of the ministry, commented from Islamabad.

The 50-page ‘information memorandum’ details rules, process, planned timetable and other relevant information for all stakeholders, particularly companies interested in the offer.

According to the memorandum, 15-year licences will be awarded in a two-stage auction process: (i) prequalification stage, including a sealed bid offer; (ii) auction stage.

The published timetable shows the consultation period after the publication of the information memorandum on February 25 will end in 11 days, i.e. on March 10.

The authority will get a week till March 17 to notify any changes to rules and procedures deemed necessary on the basis of feedback. In the next two days up to March 19, information sessions will be held for prospective bidders seeking clarifications about specifics of the auction.

The interested parties will have six days to submit their applications. The deadline for submission will expire at 4pm Pakistan Standard Time on March 25.

After three days, on March 28, PTA will notify the qualified applicants. By April 1, the qualified bidders will receive packages containing confidential information and instructions to take part in the mock auction that will be held on April 3.

The auction will start on April 7. On completion, provisional winners will be announced, who will submit the licence payment dues in accordance with the schedule in Section 2.6 of the information memorandum. Within 30 days of receiving at least 50pc of the initial spectrum fee, the government will grant the licence to the successful bidder to establish, maintain and operate next generation mobile service across Pakistan.

All five mobile companies — Mobilink, Ufone, Telenor, Zong and Warid — were contacted, but their staff in Pakistan expressed their inability to inform about the participation of their companies in the process as their senior executives were attending the global event in Barcelona.

Telecom is amongst fastest growing sectors, that offers affordable telecommunication facilities to the people, democratises information while empowering productive manpower.

The mobile subscriber base in the country has evolved at a fast pace. Currently, the market size of mobile phones is projected at around $3.2 billion. The coverage of cellular mobile is 75pc, which covers about 80pc of the total telecom market in terms of revenue.

By January 2014, according to latest available figures, there were 134 million active SIMs in the country, and that number is expected to expand to 160 million over the next three years.

“People, who stand to gain most from the deal, are not cognizant of the benefits of the new technology; the government is all excited and moving confidently to sell 3/4G licences. The telcos, in the wake of technological strides in social media platforms that are now introducing telephony options, are bracing for a more challenging business environment in Pakistan,” commented a market watcher.
 
Spectrum auction on April 23: Govt concedes to cellular companies’ demands
ISLAMABAD:
The federal government has given major concessions to mobile cellular companies, allowing them to pay the price of third and fourth-generation spectrum licences (3G and 4G) in Pakistani rupee instead of US dollars, besides agreeing to an 18-month freeze on any new auction.

The crucial decisions were taken during a meeting between the Spectrum Auction Advisory Committee and Chief Executive Officers of cellular mobile operators. The meeting was chaired by Finance Minister Ishaq Dar and attended by Minister of Science and Technology Zahid Hamid and Minister of State for Information Technology Anusha Rehman.

The government also extended the auction date by two weeks to April 23, aimed at facilitating the companies to plan their resources and seek necessary approval of their boards.

After the government had unveiled the draft of the Information Memorandum – the policy document describing terms of the upcoming auction –representatives of telecom companies had expressed reservations over the terms, which they described were in favour of the government.

Pakistan plans to issue three licences of 3G, two licences of 4G and one licence of defunct Instaphone, meant only for a new bidder. It has estimated receiving the minimum $1.6 billion.

However, according to the revised terms, the bid price will be in dollars terms but successful bidders have been given the option either to pay in dollars or the equivalent to Pakistani rupee, which will be determined on the basis of the exchange rate on the given day.

The officials said the move will also avert any pressure on exchange rate markets as the companies had refused to bring dollars from abroad and instead decided to raise them from the domestic market.

The acceptance of the demand may hurt the government’s projections for foreign exchange reserves, which has recently increased to $9.7 billion on the back of $1.5 billion contribution by a friendly Muslim country in the Pakistan Development Fund.

This is for the first time that a payment mode has been designed in a way that gives wider choices to bidders but restricts them to pay either upfront or in five years with an interest rate equal to London Inter-Bank Offered Rate plus 3%, said Anusha Rehman while talking to The Express Tribune.

Caving in to another demand, the government agreed with the telecom operators that it would not hold another auction for one-and-a-half years from the date of the upcoming auction. The telecom operators had demanded a five-year freeze but the government agreed to only one-and-a-half year, said Rehman.

She said the condition would not apply to a licence that remains unsold in the upcoming bid. She said the one-and-a-half year time was quite reasonable as, during this period, the successful bidders will be busy in laying infrastructure and rolling out the services.

The companies had also demanded that instead of selling new licences, the government should sell only the spectrum. The move was aimed at avoiding annual licence fees but the government did not agree.

They had unanimously presented their demands and the government accepted most of them. The ASC approved amendments to the Information Memorandum and the revised IM will now be issued soon. The auction is scheduled on April 23, while the sealed bids will be submitted to PTA on April 14.

The finance minister said that the PTA should ensure that best international standards. He emphasised that the consumers should get state-of-the-art next generation mobile services in line with the international best practices. The PTA was also directed by the committee to launch a public awareness campaign.

Dar emphasised that the whole process should be completed with transparency and diligently and expressed his satisfaction over the progress. He expressed the hope that PTA will conduct a competitive auction for deployment of the next generation mobile network.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 14th, 2014
 
i dnt think it will done in our lifetime.
 
Behind the scenes: Warid Telecom likely to jump into 4G

KARACHI:
In a move that will certainly take everyone by surprise, Warid Telecom – the only cellular service provider in the country that refrained from participating in the April 23 spectrum auction – is gearing up to launch Long-Term Evolution (LTE) or 4G services in top five cities by end of May.

Warid is very close to launching 4G services in Pakistan, sources with direct knowledge of the subject confirmed on the condition of anonymity. The Pakistani subsidiary of the Abu Dhabi Group has been in talks with the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), the telecom sector’s regulatory body, for launching LTE service on its existing network – this was also confirmed by a top government official.

Now the question here is whether they can do it without acquiring a 4G/LTE spectrum from the PTA? The answer would be a yes.

Warid has a very low subscriber base – less than 10% of Pakistan’s 132.3 million cell phone subscriptions as of January 2014. About 50% of the company’s network, therefore, remains unutilised, giving it the capacity to hold additional traffic on the same network. Moreover, the company already has 8.8 megahertz (MHz) bandwidth in the 1800 MHz spectrum – the same frequency, which the PTA has chosen for the roll-out of 4G technology.

Since the company has a technology-neutral licence, all it needs is an official permit from its regulator to launch an LTE service on its existing network – the process, in tech terms, is known as re-farming.

“Warid would have announced their plans to launch 4G on the auction day, had the PTA approved their request,” said an official who requested not to be named for he was not authorised to disclose this information.

“The PTA’s response has been encouraging and it’s expected that soon after due approvals from the former, the company will be testing 4G services on its network most likely by the end of May,” the official said, adding that the PTA needs time to sell the unsold spectrum before it could give a go ahead to Warid.

Though all of this plan is subject to the PTA’s approval, Warid has been gearing up to introduce 4G services around the same time that Zong – the only operator to have acquired a 4G licence in the country – is likely to come up with its 4G offers.

“Warid is in final talks with all the leading smartphone brands in Pakistan for 4G-supported handsets,” the official said – these brands include Samsung, HTC, Nokia, Sony Ericsson, LG, Google Nexus, Huawei and Apple’s authorized resellers in Pakistan, he said.

Sample handsets, dongles and USBs have been bought for 4G testing in certain locations, according to the official. The Huawei cloud – which receives 4G signal and converts them to Wifi – is also an option.

“The company is expected to launch a trade program too, to replace existing handsets with the LTE handsets,” the official said.

The official further said that the orders had been placed with existing vendors for 4G sims and testing is in process.

A top government official confirmed that Warid has the required licence to deploy 4G services but insisted that the company would have to adhere to the rules and regulations set for deployment of these services. “The company would have to comply with the PTA’s requirement for technology roll-out, network quality and legal intercept compliance,” he concluded.

PTA needs time to sell the unsold spectrum before it could give the go-ahead to Warid.
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So, we have Zong, Mobilink and Warid now all ready for a fine upgrade to the 4G spectrum.Nice development.
 
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Does that mean Pakistan don't have 3G network till now or they already allowed local players to use these spectrum for temporary basis ??
 
Ammyy said:
Does that mean Pakistan don't have 3G network till now or they already allowed local players to use these spectrum for temporary basis ??
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Already operational, plus 2 operators 4G operators operational.
 

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