Pakistan to Auction 3G and 4G Licenses in April [Confirmed] | InfoZonePK

3G Auction

The recommendations for the auction of next generation mobile services (3G/4G) have been finalized and approved by Prime Minister Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif.

Ishaq Dar, the Finance Minister, while speaking with media personals confirmed that government has decided to go with simultaneous auction of three 3G and two 4G licenses by April 2014.

Mr. Dar confirmed that a 3G license of 10Mhz block from 2100Mhz band will cost $295 million, while a 4G license of 10Mhz from 1800Mhz band is priced at $210 million.

Dar said the government would be looking for full payment, or a 50 per cent payment with the rest to be paid in five equal instalments over five years, with an interest rate of three per cent.

It is likely that foreign companies will also take part in the auction which is also stated by the federal minister.

“We are in contact with telecom operators from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey, who are interested in exploring business opportunities in Pakistan”, Dar further added.

More details about the auction are likely to get revealed in the Information Memorandum that is likely to surface with-in couple of weeks.

Mr. Dar said that consultants will now finalize the draft for IM after the approvals from Prime Minister.

As reported earlier by ProPakistani which actually got a glimpse of government’s plan through a picture of the presentation released by APP that government is planning to auction 50 MHz in total (30 MHz from 2100 Mhz for 3G licenses and 20 MHz from 1800 MHz slot for two 4G licenses) with a block size of 10 MHz each.

Along with the auction of 3G licences the auction of 4G licenses, Pakistan will rank amongst the couple of dozen countries that currently have 4G services, against over 160 countries that have already 3G networks working there.

Not to forget that 3G networks might not offer more than 2Mbps speeds to end users, while 4G operators can offer upto 100Mbps speeds on their networks.