MINSK, Belarus—The Saudi Oger carrier is considering the purchase of a 50-percent stake in the Belarussian Belcel carrier, with a deal likely to shape out by the end of February.
The Saudi Arabian carrier, which lost the tender for the second Belarussian GSM license to Russian operator Mobile TeleSystems (MTS) last year, is planning to buy the Belcel stake held by U.S. Metromedia, according to Belarussian Communications Minister Vladimir Goncharenko.
Other Belcel shareholders include state-owned Minskobltelecom and Minsk Urban Lines companies.
Belcel is an NMT 450 MHz carrier with some 20,000 subscribers. It also vied for the second GSM license last year, as it plans to switch from analog to digital technology. However, market experts believe the carrier will not get a GSM license, even with the new owner. Most likely, it will have to follow several Russian NMT carriers, which are switching to CDMA 450 MHz technology. Belcel Commercial Director Alexander Stomov confirmed that such an option is quite possible.
In the meantime, MTS is finalizing registration of a joint venture with state-run Mezhdugorodnaya svyaz Company to operate its GSM license. The joint venture, which is to be named MTS, is to launch operations in April 2002.
Mezhdugorodnaya svyaz currently is selecting an equipment vendor among six tender participants. They include Siemens, Alcatel, Ericsson, the Russian office of Network Star System, as well as Chinese companies Huawei and ZTE.
So far there is only one GSM carrier in Belarus, Velcom, which reported 110,000 clients at the end of 2001.
