Tender for fixed telephony in September

- Tender for license for fixed telephony in Serbia will be announced in September - the Minister of Telecommunications of Serbia, Jasna Matić, said on Sunday (May 24, 2009).

It was announced earlier that the tender would be announced in mid-2009, but, according to the words of Ms. Matić, that deadline has been changed because summer is not a favorable time of the year for announcement of international tenders.

- We are in the phase of preparations of documents for liberalization of fixed telephony, and we have agreed that it would not be good to announce the tender during summer because people in Europe work less in July and August than in other months of the year - said she and added that the plan was that the tender should be announced in September.

The license should be issued by the end of year 2009.

"Telekom Srbije" is the only fixed telephony operator in Serbia.

The license for wireless telephony and Internet in CDMA technology have been issued to "Telekom Srbija" and Belgrade-based "Media works", which should be put in operation within the next six months.

The announcement of the tender for introduction of telephony and high-speed Internet in WiMax technology has been postponed because of the ecponomic crisis and because a part of the frequency spectrum intended for that purposes in Belgrade has already been used by radio stations and enterprises.

The Minister of Telecommunications, Jasna Matić, said that the Republic Telecommunications Agency had tried to negotiate with the users of that spectrum, but that had given no positive results to the date.

She said that "Ratel" would try to negotiate with the license owners again, and she added that the chances for allotment of licenses for WiMax would be known in autumn.