Contentious mobile licences to be distributed today

• Three-times delayed announcement of regional mobile concession winners likely to be made today, says US official
• Local operators angered at exclusion from process - claim US favouritism
• Networks to be up and running within two months

US officials have announced that Iraq’s long wait for mobile telephony is nearly over, stating that up to three new licences are likely to be awarded today. The announcement was originally due on 5 September, before being pushed back to 12 September, though the reason for the delays are unclear. The concessions are considered potentially lucrative given that there was no widespread commercial wireless services available under Saddam Hussein’s regime, with analysts predicting that the market will be worth USD6 billion by 2008. John Shaw, deputy undersecretary for international security at the US Defence Department, says that the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) has been examining all the bids submitted for the two-year licences. The concessions, which divide the country into three regions (north, south and central), will come with strict rollout stipulations and winners must have services available commercially within two months. Local newspaper Iraq Today claimed that as many as 80 bids were tendered.

However, the US-led administration has been criticised for perceived attempts at excluding local telecoms operators from the bidding process, whilst heavily favouring US companies. Texas-based Halliburton, US vice-president Dick Cheney’s former company, has so far won the majority of post-war contracts in Iraq and whilst it is not bidding for the mobile licences the US is once again being branded culturally imperialist. The CPA had initially said that no firm in which a foreign government had more than a 5% stake could enter a bid, though this was later relaxed to 10%. The ceiling rules out bids from a number of regional Arab carriers, including Kuwait’s MTC-Vodafone, Etisalat of the UAE and Bahrain’s Batelco. Batelco had spent USD5 million on the rollout of wireless services in the capital Baghdad in July, but was forced to close the network under pressure from US officials within days of launch. Major European mobile players such as Orange and T-Mobile, based in anti-invasion France and Germany respectively, are also ineligible whilst Iraqi state telco ITPC has been excluded from bidding, even though the successful bidders will be using the 350 towers that ITPC has erected. The CPA has also courted controversy by not including any requirements to employ local contractors in the proposals.

Source: PriMetrica's Global Comms database