Ministry announces UMTS license fees
The Communications Ministry announced Friday that it had set a minimum fee of o750 million for each of the five third-generation mobile licenses the government would sell later this year. If the ministry sells all five, it would add o3.75 billion to the state treasury's coffers.
Przemyslaw Sypniewski, an adviser to Communications Minister Tomasz Szyszko, said the UMTS tender would be announced on Oct. 2 and combine features of a beauty contest and an auction. He said he could not reveal two of three criteria that the government would use to evaluate the bidders, but added that all the participants would have to meet the financial criteria and pay at least o750 million each. However, Sypniewski said last month that the selection of the winners would be based on price along with other criteria, such as company credibility, amount of investment, presence on the market and additional grants that the firms would provide.
Sypniewski also said that winners would pay half their license fees in 2001 and the other half during the next seven years. The ministry decided on the split payments after it took into consideration the high amount of investments required by the license winners to develop the UMTS market in Poland, he said.
Bids would be accepted from Oct. 5-Nov. 6, Sypniewski said. The winners would then be selected on Nov. 29 and receive their licenses on Dec. 27.
