BUCHAREST, Romania-At the end of August, the prime ministers of Lithuania and Latvia met to discuss the possibility of granting just one Universal Mobile Telecom-munications System license across the Baltic states.
According to Alar-Ants Smirnov, deputy manager in the Estonian Market Regulation Department, the 3G license is a new idea, and the Estonian officials are not yet ready to officially comment on the matter.
Latvian officials proposed the idea of issuing a single UMTS license, but it has raised several questions about which method will be used to choose the carrier-which would operate in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia-how the money from the license will be shared, billing and other issues.
“The decision of issuing a single 3G license will be a political decision made on the highest level,” said Antanas Burkauskas, head of the Communications Regulation and Licensing Division of the Lithuanian Department of Com-munications.
“We have information that the prime ministers of the Baltic States are considering the possibility of organizing a working group that would comprise representatives of the Ministries of Transport of the three Baltic states,” said Aivis Freidenfelds, Lithuanian head of the government press department.
In principle, the Baltic 3G license process will be held in the third quarter of this year or in the first quarter of next year. The three prime ministers from the Baltic states will meet in September in Estonia to discuss the future of the common 3G license.
However, the latest Latvian official government statement regarding that country’s 3G licensing was published in the official newspaper Latvijas Vestnesis in mid-August. According to Gunnars Postnieks from the Latvian Telecommunic-ations State Inspection, the statement stipulated the third Latvian mobile license auction should be carried out together with UMTS and GSM 1800 standards.
The Latvian Ministry of Transport and the Ministry of Economics will draft the auction rules for the UMTS license, which will be announced by the Cabinet of Ministers on Nov. 1.
