By IANS,
Dubai : A Vodafone-led consortium Monday beat two other bidders to bag Qatar’s second fixed line telecommunications licence.
The licence will now permit Vodafone and the Qatar Foundation Consortium to compete with Qatar Telecom (Qtel) in both fixed and mobile telecom sectors in that Gulf nation, according to a statement issued by ictQatar, Qatar’s independent telecom regulator.
“Today’s announcement is another significant step toward liberalising our market for communications networks and services and creating a knowledge-based information society,” Hessa Al-Jaber, ictQATAR’s secretary general, said in the statement.
“The result of the entrance of Vodafone into our fixed line market will bring to consumers better value and innovation in products and services,” he added.
ictQATAR, established in 2004, oversees the liberalisation process of the telecom sector.
The Vodafone-Qatar Foundation Consortium beat the Jordan Telecom Consortium and the PCCW-QIPCO Consortium to bag the much hyped second fixed line licence after ictQatar whittled down the number of shortlisted bidders to three.
In August, the number of shortlisted bidders had been brought down to eight.
Earlier this year, the Vodafone-Qatar Foundation Consortium had also bagged Qatar’s second mobile telecommunications licence.
With Monday’s development, the long-held monopoly of Qatar Telecom (Qtel) in that country’s telecom sector comes to an end.
Qtel had Sunday announced record profits of 655 million Qatari riyals ($180 million) in the second quarter of 2008, an increase of 59 percent from the same period last year.
The new operator is expected to launch mobile services by March 1 next year.
With the fixed line licence likely to be granted before the end of this year, landline services were expected to be launched within 2009, the ictQatar statement said.
“Telecommunications companies and those in related industries will open headquarters or offices here and across all industries, better pricing and service range and quality will make Qatar an even more attractive place to do business,” Hessa said in the statement.