Norway awards four UMTS licenses

date: 29 November 2000, source: Anne Young, Total Telecom

The Norwegian Ministry of Transport and Communications announced Wednesday that it has allocated its four third-generation mobile licenses.

The winners of the licenses, which have been awarded via the beauty-contest method for 100 million kroner (US$11.2 million) each, plus an additional 20 million kroner ($2.2 million) a year, are:

• Telenor, the Norwegian incumbent operator;
• NetCom GSM AS, part of Sweden's Telia. The Swedish incumbent said it now has UMTS licenses in both Norway and Finland, and has applied for a license in Sweden;
• Broadband Mobile, a joint venture between Finland's Sonera and Norwegian communications services provider Enitel;
• Tele2, which is owned by a Swedish company also called NetCom.

Seven groups had originally applied for the licenses. The three losers are:

• Orange Norge AS (Orange plc, Bredband Mobil AB, with Schibsted ASA, Nera ASA, Bane Tele, Norsk Aller AS, Veidekka ASA and Four Seasons Venture III AS);
• BusinessNet AS (Tele1 Europe AS, Western Wireless International and Rix Telecom);
• A consortium of Orkla ASA, Dagbladet ASA, Hafslund ASA, Hakon Gruppen AS, NorgesGruppen ASA, OBOS/NBBL and Posten Norge BA.

top