Israel’s Ministry of Communications is set to issue two new mobile licences in order to increase competition in the country’s telecoms sector. Applicants must submit their request by February 1st, 2011, and existing operators cannot participate (to increase their own spectrum allocations) with the exception of Mirs, which is the smallest of the carriers.
The minimum bid for a licence is set at 10 million ILS (about $2.71 million), with a framework in place to reimburse fees over this amount if certain conditions are met. License winners will have seven years to deploy networks.
According to Wireless Intelligence, Israel currently has four mobile operators for a population of 9.84 million. Cellcom is a leading company with a 33.9% marketshare, and is followed by Partner Communications (Orange), Pelephone (Bezeq) and iDEN-based Mirs, which command 31.5, 28.5 and 6.1 percent of the market, respectively.
In addition to the new regular operators (with their own infrastructure), Israel has recently issued 4 MVNO permits with another 8 being assessed as we speak. All said, we wonder is more competition really needed in a country with just below 10 million people? I don’t think so, but what do I know…
[Via: MobileBusinessBriefing]