HELSINKI, Finland—PTS, Sweden’s telecom regulatory organization, has warned telecom companies that secured third-generation (3G) network licenses that they risk losing these licenses in the event that they stall development plans any further.
Twelve months after PTL allocated four 3G licenses, licensees have only applied for only 700 permits to build radio base stations. Under the terms of license they must seek 300 to 350 building permits per month.
“To be quite frank, I am more than a little surprised that the delays are occurring, and that more progress is not being made. I had thought that license holders would have made more progress by now,” said Gunnar Billinger, PTS administrative director.
Under the terms of the state-run licensing round, the license winners are required to offer 99.98 percent of Sweden’s population access to the 3G mobile telephone service by the end of 2003. This will require the construction of some 8,000 to 1,000 base stations.
However, while the delay is significant, some license holders, including the joint venture consortium comprising Telia and Tele2, are playing down almost daily market reports of serious financing problems being experienced by certain 3G license holders.
“We do not foresee any problem in meeting the PTS’s deadline. And we have the resources to fulfill all requirements in the license contract,” said Mikael Elseus, the head of the Telia-Tele 3G infrastructure development consortium.
Sweden’s PTS awarded four 3G licenses in December 2000 to four groups. The first went to Europolitan, part of U.K.-based Vodafone; the second to Tele2, the cellular arm of Netcom which bid together with Societe Europeene de Communication. The third and fourth licenses went to the Orange consortium, comprised of the mobile arm of France T
