ISLAMABAD, June 3: The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has collected Rs1.102 billion as initial fee for Local Loop (LL) and Long Distance International (LDI) licences.

In an announcement issued here on Thursday, the PTA said it had received 95 applications for LL and LDI licences till June 2, the extended date for submission of applications. Out of the 95 applications, 23 were for LDI licence while 72 were for LL licences.

Out of 72 LL applicants, 12 companies have applied for all 14 telecom regions whereas the remaining 60 applications are for different regions. The list of applicant companies has been made available on the PTA website.

The evaluation process has already commenced at the PTA. In this regard two separate committees for LL and LDI have been constituted to scrutinize and short-list applications. The evaluation would be based on technical and financial viability of the applicants as already provided in the Information Memorandum (IM).