The Chairman Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), Shahzada Alam Malik on Wednesday confirmed that in response to the authority's offer, Warid Telecom has deposited $49 million for mobile phone service license and has agreed to pay the remaining $24 million of 25 percent in next 10 working days.
Warid Telecom would deposit further 25 percent of the bid money within 40 days.
PTA chairman told a group of journalists, after presiding over an investors conference here, that $10 million earnest money of Space Telecom, a consortium of local and foreign investors, stood confiscated for default on payment of 25 percent of $291 million within stipulated period.
When reminded that Space Telecom had moved the court of law to protect its position, Shahzada said that PTA honours rules and regulations and law of the land and all its decisions were strictly in line with the same policy. He added that PTA had presented its position before the court of law, which did not issue any direction or stay order to the authority as was pleaded by the aggrieved party.
Earlier on the demand of the participants of the conference, last date for the receipt of applications for the grant of Local Loop (LL) and Long Distance International (LDI) licenses has been extended from May 14 to May 30.
The conference was attended by more than 77 chief executives of the renowned national and international telecom investors and their representatives, who responded to PTA's invitation for grant of LL and LDI licenses floated through the national and international media.
Speaking on the occasion, PTA chairman said the authority had received massive response from the intending investors, for the grant of fixed telecommunication licenses in view of vast potential in this vibrant sector.
Shahzada Alam said that tele-density in Pakistan was only 2.8 percent, which was quite low as compared to Asian standard of 11 percent and added that keeping in view the location of Pakistan, its linkages with the Gulf and Central Asian States as well as national GDP, the tele-density should have been from 7 to 8 percent.
There was vast potential for investment in this vibrant sector and tremendous opportunities were available to the fixed line telecommunication service operators to exploit the untapped resources, he stressed.
The PTA chairman said the conference was a historic occasion in the history of telecom sector as the entry of LL operators in 14 telecom regions and the issuance of licenses to LDI operators would completely put an end to PTCL's monopoly over basic telephony.
He said that according to the telecom deregulation policy, the new licensees would be technology neutral and the term of both the licenses would be for 20 years.
Spelling out details and criteria for the grant of licenses, the PTA chairman said that there was no restriction on the number of licenses as per telecom policy and an applicant could apply for both LL and LDI licenses separately or for more than one LL license for various telecom regions.
Shahzada Alam said that a non-refundable application-processing fee of $ 500 will be charged from the intending applicants and furthermore for LL license, an applicant would have to pay $10,000 while $ 500,000 would be charged for the LDI license in account of license fee.
He said that both the fees were refundable if the license to a party was not granted, adding that in the case of LDI license, a Performance Bond of US dollar 10 million was also required to be submitted by the applicant at the time of award of license.
During the conference, the investors raised a number of issues pertaining to inter-connection, co-location, right of way and spectrum allocation.
The Chairman responded to their queries and assured the investors that the Authority would give due consideration to their suggestions and try to accommodate their useful suggestions.
The chairman thanked the investors for reposing full confidence on PTA and its independent role as a telecom regulatory body.
He assured the investors that PTA would provide a level playing field to all the stakeholders and extend full support to the telecom operators in the expansion of their business.
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