Regulation Corner - 20/08/08

The European Regulators Group (ERG) criticizes the European roaming billing regime and specially on per-minute roaming rates.

Mali plans to privatize incumbent telecom operator Sotelma before year-end.

Armenia plans to tender a third mobile license in the country.

Both the Ukrainian regulator and an administrative court have canceled granting a 3G license to Kyivstar.

A single operator has bidden for the fourth GSM mobile license in Bulgaria, so Bulgaria cancels the tender.

Poland has launched a 30-day consultation period for mobile TV licenses.

Ofcom UK has announced that it is launching an investigation into the wholesale call pricing of BT.

Malawi regulator (MACRA) has granted the nation's third mobile license to GAIN.

India: the government has unveiled its 3G license auction plans and plans to grant licenses to 10 operators across the country. In a separate announcement, the TRAI Indian regulator calls for the introduction of MVNO operators in the country. It also called all GSM mobile operators (including Bharti Airtel, BSNL, Vodafone, Idea Cellular, and Spice) to provide interconnection to Reliance Communications' GSM network immediately

BTRC (Bangladesh regulator) would grant internet protocol telephony licenses to three ISPs by 10/2008.

ANRCETI (Moldova) is planning to sell 3G licenses later this year.

RomTelecom' s privatization has been postponed until 2009.

The Nigerian government and the local telecom regulator NCC have given their approval to the sale of a 15% stake in Nitel to NigComSat.

The French anti-trust agency (Conseil de la concurrence) has asked the government to ease regulations governing MVNOs to increase competition in the mobile service market.