Morocco launches international tender for second fixed phone license in june

Morocco will launch next June an international tender to cede a second fixed phone license to private operators.

The Moroccan telecommunications regulatory agency "L'Agence Nationale de Reglementation des Telecommunications" (ANRT) announced Thursday that the tender will be launched on June 11 and that interested candidates can collect the tender related documents from June 11 through June 27.

The deadline to submit the tenders is set for October 8, ANRT said, adding that consultations with interested operators will be carried on throughout the month of May "to secure best chances of success to the operation, that is major for the sector."

The public operator Maroc-T?l?com is currently having the monopoly of the fixed telephone. Maroc-T?l?com, whose capital is held at the rate of 35 % by French Vivendi Universal, is also operating one of the two mobile phone licenses in the country. The second license was granted two years ago to M?di T?l?com, a Spanish-Portuguese(Moroccan consortium.

The turnover of the fixed telephone market currently approximates 7.0 billion Dirhams (about US$ 608.69 million), says the ANRT, which forecasts to double the amount by 2012.

ANRT, set up in 1998, led the telecommunication liberalization process in Morocco. The success of these operations were behind the decision to grant a second license for fixed telephone.