Ireland may be last to award 3G licenses in the EU

date: October 19, 2001

The Irish Government will be the last EU government to award 3G mobile phone licences following decisions by France and Luxembourg to press ahead with their 3G competitions, writes Jamie Smyth.

The Republic is certain to miss a European Commission deadline of January 1st, 2002 for the award of licences - which is likely to result in formal censure by the Commission.

A stand-off between the Republic's telecoms regulator, Ms Etain Doyle, and Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, is delaying the award of 3G licences here.

Ms Doyle favours a cheaper price for the licences while Mr McCreevy wants to charge a fee of up to £100 million (€127 million). Both seem reluctant to compromise, despite Japanese operator NTT Docomo introducing the world's first 3G service.

Asked if the Republic would consider a similar compromise to France, a spokeswoman for the telecoms regulator said "various ways of dealing with the spectrum fee were being considered".

Four licenses will go on offer via a beauty contest as soon as this issue has been satisfactorily completed. There are currently two main GSM operators in Ireland, with a third, much smaller operator, Meteor, which launched services recently.

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