15 bid for lucrative mobile licence
Tuesday August 28, 2007

At least 15 companies have put in their bids to operate mobile phone services in Fiji, interim Communications Minister Taito Waradi said today.

Today was the closing date for the tenders, after Government in July, put out a general invitation to interested parties wishing to operate mobile phone services in Fiji and opening up the country's mobile market.

Waradi (who will be leaving for China on a trade mission this week) says interest has come in from the United Kingdom, the United States as well as locals.

"It has generated a lot of interest both locally and overseas."

Asked how many licences would be given out, Waradi says it would be limited by the availability of radio spectrum (which can cater for about 9).

Fiji's telecom market, segregated into international, domestic and mobile, is currently monopolised by Amalgamated Telecom Holdings Ltd.

ATH had already begun negotiations in late May over a compensation package for telecommunication operators in exchange for the removal of their exclusive licences.

Waradi says the mediation process on the issue is starting next week. A world bank expert is mediating and the key players would be involved, he added.

"The first thing we have to sign is the mediation protocol which sets up the rule for the mediation process."

He says the incumbents, Fiji International Telecommunications Ltd and Telecom Fiji Ltd (TFL) have seven years of exclusivity left and the whole process was to address that.

Waradi says any new mobile phone licence holder will be paying a licence fee to operate in the Fiji market. He did not reveal a figure.

He says both FINTEL and TFL are paying $1.2m in licence fee while Vodafone was riding on the back of TFL licence. Vodafone itself does not have a licence, he says.

The mediation process is expected to be completed by mid next month.