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Abridging the DigITal Divide Between 3G World & "Africa's Eco-hub."

Saturday 5 January 2008, 5:56 AM

Set, ready, 3Go mobile 2008!

Posted by Doregos

-with the award of licenses to Celtel and three other mobile operators, Nigeria is launching the 3G revolution in 2008.

Celtel was one of the four companies awarded the third generation mobile telephony, 3G, spectrum license by the Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC, in March 2007. It was awarded the license after a tender and prequalification process which began in February. The others are Globacom, MTN and Alheri Engineering Limited.
Celtel and the other three pre-qualified through the payment of USD15m deposit into NCC’s account. With four paired blocks of spectrum on offer at a reserved price of US$150m each, it became unnecessary for the Commission to proceed with the planned auction process. The four awardees that were given 14 days from the date of provisional license award to pay the balance of the license fees have since paid up.

The distinguishing feature of the 3G service offerings from the 2G and its variants is the much wider video and data content and capacity- 3G service offerings include voice, slow-scan and streaming video; interactive multimedia; file and image transfer; web browsing; e-mail; information services; banking services, etc.

Cost of 3G Spectrum Licenses
Nigerian earned $600 million for the four 3G Licenses and this is considered fair and reasonable. The 3G spectrum auction held in the United Kingdom in April 2000 raised $32.58 billion. The Netherlands auctioned off five 3G licenses for $2.3 billion in July 2000. Spain, on the other hand, raised only $425 million from its sale of four 3G license in March 2000. In August 2000, the German auction concluded with record bids for twelve 3G licenses, raising an aggregate sum of over $46 billion. Bidders were required to bid successfully for at least two blocks of spectrum to qualify for a license and the six successful bidders each obtained two blocks of spectrum and 20-year licenses.

Roll-Out Obligation
NCC has indicated that tit would not impose roll-out obligation on the 3G Licensees. A comparative study of foreign experience shows that early roll-out deadlines became an unrealistic possibility for operators to roll out 3G networks.
(Adapted from "Share Our World." Quarter 3, 2007- Celtel's quarterly communications)
See also; 3G telecoms services in Nigeria (http://www.africanews.com/site/list_messages/14102)


-Dis na Naija!

-doregos
View Doregos Olaleye (Invite = doregoss55@yahoo.com)'s profile on LinkedIn

Tributes:
CELTEL Nigeria - http://www.celtel.com/en/index.html, http://www.ng.celtel.com/en/
AFRICA News - http://www.africanews.com

Comments on this post

Doregos
  • Doregos
  • Sales / Marketing, Lagos, Nigeria.
  • Member since: January 2004

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