After issuance of NOC, companies will be able to launch 3G, 4G services commercially
Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) on Tuesday indicated to hold a ceremony to award recently auctioned 3G and 4G licenses to four telecom operators on May 22 (Thursday).
PTA Chairman Dr Syed Ismail Shah said, “We are in touch with the mobile phone operators and getting their confirmation. We have planned the ceremony and probably it would be held on Thursday.”
He said, “Our plan was to award licenses to auction winners after meeting all required formalities so that they could start their 3G and 4G services on commercial basis without any hassle and subscribers could enjoy the high speed broadband on their mobiles.”
While talking to media, a PTA senior official said that Ufone, Mobilink and Telenor would be awarded with 3G licenses while Zong would be given 3G and 4G licenses.
Here it is pertinent to note that, without No Objection Certificate (NOC) from PTA the telecom operators cannot commercially launch their 3G services in the country.
License award ceremony was subject to advance (or full) payment of spectrum that telecom companies had won during the auction.
This ceremony was initially planned for May 10 but was later rescheduled because the mobile phone companies did not deposit the upfront payment for the spectrum.
Initial or upfront payment was lingered because of 10 per cent withholding tax issue which seemed almost resolved after several rounds of talks among FBR, PTA and cellular companies, confirmed a PTA official.
It is mentioned here that all operators, except Zong, are offering free 3G services in different cities of the country. These operators are all set to commercially launch the services as soon as the licenses and NoC are granted to them from PTA.
