Hungary launches tender for two new mobile licences
By Dusan Belic on Monday, October 27th, 2008 at 3:42 AM PST In General
Even though mobile penetration in Hungary is currently running at around 108% according to data from TeleGeography as of June 30, 2008 – 20% of the country’s population still do not own a mobile phone.
At the moment, three operators are ruling Hungary — T-Mobile (NYSE: DT), Vodafone (NYSE: VOD) and Telenor-owned Pannon — and since price competition between the three players stagnated since 2006, the country’s telecoms regulator, National Communications Authority (NHH), decided to launch two 15-year mobile licence tenders and separately, a third proposal designed to provide further mobile infrastructure development.
According to NHH’s Daniel Pataki, this decision was made to boost mobile market competition. “We have called the tender now as market conditions could turn even more unfavorable, since nobody can tell when this global financial market turmoil could end,” he added.
As expected, the three existing carriers will be excluded from bidding for the new licences.
[Via: TeleGeography]
