The closing date for offers' submission is 26 May, 2009
The declaration date of candidate winner is 27 May, 2009
Amman: In light of TRC's continuous efforts to provide third generation mobile communications services before the end of this year, TRC's Board of Commissioners has decided this week to go through the needed procedures to publish the tender for licensing the use of radio spectrum frequencies for mobile communications (Third Generation) according to a defined schedule starting 30/3/2009.
TRC's Board of Commissioners has approved the tender document in a previous session. The tender invitation includes descriptive information to clarify the procedures that TRC will follow for organizing the submission of offers, and the process for evaluating those offers in the preparation to grant a license by TRC to the winner to use the frequencies clarified in this invitation.
The tender is concerned with licensing the frequency band (2.1 GHz), and the minimum limit of the financial offer is (25) million JD per unit of (5+5 MHz), where the bidder decides the required number of paired frequency units (10, 15 or 20) MHz. Also, the candidate winner of the tender will be the bidder who offers the highest price for the basic unit of (5+5 MHz) provided that the presented offer complies with the tender conditions.
The tender document contained descriptive procedures concerning the eligibility to participate in the tender including: the submitted bid bond, conditions for offers' submission, the rejected offers mechanism, opening of sealed envelopes, awarding the tender, dealing with the cases of bidders who have not acquired an individual licenses, dealing with the cases of highest value equality for two or more offers, implementation of the undertakings, and frequency license award.
The tender document also contained general provisions concerning violation of the rules, change of ownership and control, the actual term of the frequency license, the exclusion from participation in the tender, the contacting bidder's methodology by TRC, and other provisions.
The document enclosed several appendices, including: The Financial offer Forum, The Undertaking, The Forum of Bank Guarantee Bond, The Optional Frequencies that will be available as an option to the winner of the tender in the frequency band (2.1 GH) for the purpose of 3G services, and also in the frequency band (1800 MHz) for the purpose of 2G mobile communications services.
Within the tender document, a timetable is shown for the tender process as follows:
Release of tender documents - 30/3/2009
Closing Date (Bid Submission) - 26/5/2009
Declaration of Candidate Winner - 27/5/2009
Issuing / modifying licenses - 28/5-27/6/2009
The Separation Period - 28/6/2009 - 27/4/2010
The Reservation Period - 28/4/2010 - 27/7/2010
The document also stated that TRC reserves the right to modify those dates as deems necessary, in such a way that keeps the length to the separation period to be 10 months and the reservation period to be 3 months. Taking into consideration that the separation period and the reservation period are those mentioned in the Regulatory Statement published on TRC's website on 26/11/2008 under the title "Statement on Licensing the Use of 3G Cellular Communications Technologies Radio Frequencies in Jordan". This Statement included the basic principles that TRC will adopt for licensing the Third Generation (3G) Spectrum in the frequency band (2.1GHz), awarding mechanism, available frequencies bands, acquisition fees, in addition to the separation period and the reservation period, and other procedures.
In retrospect concerning the process taken by TRC to provide 3G services in Jordan, TRC convened an open forum for all concerned parties on 25/6/2009 under the title "Forum on Mobile Communications and Third Generation Services". In this forum, TRC explained what was performed concerning the telecommunications market studies for the purpose of creating suitable conditions for effective competition in the mobile telecommunications sector, announced the issuing of a public consultation document regarding Third Generation Services, and published the "Green Paper" related to creating the needed conditions for effective competition in the mobile telecommunications sector on its website. Moreover, TRC held a press conference on 26/11/2008 to announce for issuing the Statement on "Licensing the Use of 3G Cellular Communications Technologies Radio Frequencies in Jordan", as well as issuing the Explanatory Memorandum on the results of the public consultation in this regard.
Its worth mentioning that TRC had intended to release the Tender document on 14/12/2008, but it was postponed due to requests submitted by Zain, Orange Mobile and XPress companies, in order to have more time to complete studying their business plans, and due to the public holidays in December which prevented them from completing the needed procedures.
Also, TRC emphasized in a statement issued at that time that it will determine a new date to launch the tender document and all the procedures that will be taken in this regard after studying the requests submitted by the operators.
-Ends-
© Press Release 2009
