November 19 (SeeNews) - Macedonia on Monday invited potential investors to express interest in three licences for third-generation UMTS mobile phone operators by January 5.
"The starting price for the ten-year licence is 10 million euro ($14.6 million). Interested bidders can express interest for only one of the three licences announced," Macedonia's telecoms regulator, AEC, said in a statement.
Third-generation networks can handle Internet, video and other services, exceeding in quality the GSM system. The winners in the tender should start operations no later than six months after receiving permissions.
Macedonia's first mobile operator was founded in September 1996 under the name Mobimak which it changed to T-Mobile Macedonia last year. Smaller Cosmofon is the Macedonian unit of Greece's Cosmote group.
Macedonia's third mobile phone operator, VIP, is a unit of Telekom Austria's wireless arm Mobilkom. It was licensed earlier this year and started operations in September.
($ = 0.6832 euro)