ISLAMABAD, Nov 22: In line with the government’s decision of issuing two more cellular mobile licenses, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has invited Expression of Interest (EoI) from the interested parties to initiate the process of issuing the licenses.

Recently, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) chairman, Shahzada Alam Malik, had announced that two new mobile companies would be awarded licences in a fair and transparent manner to cope with the rising demand of the mobile phone users.

He had announced that the process of granting licenses to the new entrants would be initiated after floating Expression of Interest (EOI) and the party giving the highest bid would be granted license to operate.

Valid for 15 years, the new licenses would be technology neutral and the entire process of issuing these would be completed within five to six months. It was expected that with the entry of new operators, huge investments in the country would come.

According to the PTA sources, cellular mobile usage was growing at an accelerated pace after the introduction of the Calling Party Pays (CPP) regime in the year 2000. Currently, four operators (2 GSM, 1 D-AMPS, 1 AMPS1) provide service to over 2.8 million cellular subscribers.

The number of subscribers has tripled in the past two years. However, the mobile teledensity in Pakistan was still around 1.9 and there was substantial unmet demand, he said.

He said the interested parties through the EoI had been asked to provide an outline of the technical, commercial and financial strength and experience of the interested party in cellular mobile telephony/telecommunication sector. Besides, they have been asked to provide an outline of how the interested party would address future mobile market requirements in order to further liberalise the telecom sector in Pakistan.

He said the PTA would review the EoIs received and hold a conference of interested parties, while the information memorandum including the draft licence, the bidding process and a note on regulatory environment, would be issued on January 7, 2004.