TASHKENT, Uzbekistan-The Central Asian republic of Uzbekistan restored AMPS/D-AMPS licenses to two carriers that it earlier recalled for failure to stand up to their commitments.
The Uzbek Agency for Posts and Communications restored the licenses to the Indonesian Buztel and the Rubicon US-Uzbek joint venture in January, however, only until the third quarter of 2001.
First Deputy Director General of the Agency Abdullah Aripov said the licenses were restored until their expiration time in the middle of 2001. The move was prompted by experts of the German Commerzbank, which acts as a financial consultant in the privatization of the state Uzbektelecom carrier.
“We agreed with the opinion of the experts of the German bank,” Aripov said and recalled that in the middle of the year all the six national carriers will have their five-year licenses expired.
“The issue of prolonging the licenses will be solved concretely with each company,” he stressed.
Buztel, completely owned by the Indonesian Bakrie Group, and Rubicon were stripped of the licenses late last year for failure to fulfill their business plans of developing wireless networks across the republic. In addition, they did not use the provided frequency bands in full.
Rubicon is owned by the U.S. I&D International (35 percent), Amis Protrade (35 percent), the Uzbek Mahalli Telecom (25 percent) and the Republican TV and Radio Production Amalgamation (5 percent).
There are currently a total of 60,000 mobile-phone users in Uzbekistan.
