IRAQ - Oct. 6 - Mobile Phone Licences Given.

The Ministry of Telecommunications announces the winners of 3 licences to bring commercial mobile phone service, in the first big international investment tender in the country following the war. The tender featured a large role for new Iraqi companies, in addition to mobile phone providers from other Arab countries. Egypt's Orascom Telecom, Mobile Telecommunications Co. of Kuwait (MTC), and Wataniya Telecom, also from Kuwait, are each part of consortia awarded 2-year licences to provide service to the central, southern, and northern regions respectively. At least two Iraqi companies - Dijla Telecommunications Corporation (DTC), headed by businessman Ali Shawkat, and Asia Cell, based in Iraqi Kurdistan and owned by Kurdish Iraqi businessman Farouq Mustafa Rasool - have majority stakes in their consortia. DTC has a majority stake in the consortium Atheer Telecom Iraq, alongside MTC, which has the licence for the southern region. Asia Cell is the majority stakeholder in the Asia Cell consortium, which wins the licence for the north, alongside Kuwait's Wataniya Telecom. (Asia Cell originally brought mobile phone services to the Kurdish city of Suleimaniya in 1999). The Minister of Telecommunications Haidar Al-Abadi, appointed at the beginning of this month, says he expects service to begin in weeks, and operators would largely use existing infrastructure. (None of the 6 US national wireless carriers - Verizon Wireless, AT&T Wireless, Cingular Wireless, Sprint PCS, Nextel Communications & T-Mobile USA - bid for the contracts). Abadi says the standard for the licences is GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) rather than Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) system, which was developed by California-based Qualcomm. (Earlier this year, a Republican congressman from California, Darrell Issa, urged the US government to award the licence to contractors that use CDMA. Such a move would have favoured Lucent Technologies, based in New Jersey, which is one of the world's largest suppliers of equipment for CDMA networks). A CPA official says the cost of the licences would be "miniscule" as the 2-year licence period is shorter than normal for such a tender, and companies have to be given a chance to recoup their costs. (The decision to bring in non-Iraqi Arab companies reflects a desire by CPA and Iraqi officials to strengthen commercial links with the moderate Arab states. Orascom Telecom, an Egyptian company owned by the Coptic Christian Sawiris family, in partnership with a Palestinian businessman based in Cairo, Alaa El-Khawaja. Orascom Chairman Naguib Sawiris said in Cairo on Oct.6 each consortium was committed to having an operational service 60 days after contracts are signed).