RATEL: Licenses for CDMA in Serbia in May

The President of the Administrative Board of the Republic Telecommunications Agency, Jovan Radunović, announced on April 24th that the names of the companies that would get the licenses for introduction of fixed wireless telephony and internet – CDMA – would be known on May 19th.

He said that eight companies, six Serbian and two foreign ones, had bought the dossier for the open competition. The deadline for submission of bids is May 15th. The tender for allotment of two CDMA licenses was announced on March 31st.

The dossier has been bought by the following companies: "Digi sat", "Vip mobile", "Telekom Srbija", "Media Works", Serbian Cable Network (SBB), KDS-NS, US company "ABA net" and Estonian "Net tel phone".

CDMA enables provision of telephone services and access to low-quality Internet, which is suitable for rural areas where telecommunication infrastructure has not been built yet.

Radunović said that that service would be first introduced in rural areas within the next six months, while the plan was that whole Serbia be covered in two years.

As he estimated, that technology is not expected to lower the prices, but to prevent the growth of monopoly.

The licenses will be issued on ten years, and the minimum fee is 500,000 EUR per license.

The bidders can apply for one license each. If there are more than two qualified bidders, an auction will be organized.