ISLAMABAD, Feb 18: Pakistan’s commitment to the WTO that new telecom licenses will be given to operators before January 1, 2004 is not likely to be fulfilled as 10 to 15 months will be required to issue licenses after the cabinet approves the draft deregulation policy, an informed source told Dawn.

The source said creating conducive atmosphere to attract potential investors, giving advertisement internationally, short listing, bidding and award of licenses would require time.

Federal Minister for Information Technology and Telecommunication Awais Ahmed Khan Leghari, when asked to comment, was confident that new licenses would be issued by August or September as the draft policy was at the final stages for presentation before the cabinet.

“We are a political government and do not want to present the policy before the cabinet blindly, rather we want to study every aspect since we do not want to see the policy as a failure,” he said, adding that his ministry was careful because investment was possible in two areas only — natural gas and telecommunications.

The draft deregulation policy suggested to offer at least two new cellular licenses for sale through a transparent, open and competitive bidding process in 1800 MHz frequency bands.

The policy has proposed to have two types of licenses for fixed line operators — local loop (LL) fixed line telecommunications, and long distance and international (LDI) fixed line telecommunications.

Similarly, three new nation-wide licenses for long distance and international fixed line telecommunications and upto three new local loop fixed line telecommunications licenses have also been proposed.

Mr Leghari said efforts were being made to ensure transparency and fairness in the deregulation policy on telecommunication. The government, he added, was committed to announcing an investor-friendly policy, in which interests of all the stakeholders, including the investors and the end users, would be ensured.