ISLAMABAD, Aug 13: Pakistan Telecom Authority (PTA) on Friday held an auction of spectrum for the grant of Wireless Local Loop (WLL) licences for four different frequencies in Multan Telecom Region (MTR), said an official statement.

The auction conducted on for the third consecutive day was presided over by the PTA chairman, Shahzada Alam Malik. Nehmatullah Toor, Member (Finance) and Naseem Ahmed Vohra, Member (Tech), were also present on the occasion.

Before the start of bidding, the PTA chairman welcomed a three-member delegation from Bangladesh, headed by Mahmud Hassan Mansoor, Secretary, Post and Telegraph. The delegation had desired to witness the bidding being held for the first time in the telecom sector of Pakistan.

The bidding was held for allocation of frequency in 1.9 GHz, 450 MHz, 479 MHz and 3.5 GHz in the MTR region. Out of five contestants for the allocation of frequency in 1.9 GHz, Telecard got one block at the highest bid of Rs286 million, while two other companies, World Call Telephony and PTCL were allocated two other blocks at the matching cost, the press release said.

In the spectrum of 450 MHz comprising two carriers, DV.Com gave the highest bid of Rs70 million and got one carrier, while the other carrier was obtained by PTCL at the matching price.

In the spectrum of 479 MHz, only one block was available, which was taken by World Call Telephony at the highest bid of Rs20 million. Six parties contested for the allocation of frequency in 3.5 GHz consisting of seven blocks and one block each was allocated to Tele card, DV.Com, PTCL, World Call, Burraq Telecom and Warid WLL at the base price of Rs580,000, while one block in the spectrum was kept in reserve.