Qatar telecom watchdog to poll mkt on Qtel services
April 2nd, 2008 | by admin |DUBAI, April 2 (Reuters) - Qatar’s telecoms regulatorinvited domestic firms and institutions on Wednesday to givetheir verdict on the services of Qatar Telecommunications CoQTEL.QA (Qtel).
“The Supreme Council of Information and CommunicationsTechnology invited … opinions and comment on the tariff ofservices provided by Qtel and the products it provides,” theofficial Qatar News Agency said.
It said the move comes in line with the watchdog’s”commitment to transparency”, but did not give furtherexplanation.
Qtel currently runs the only mobile and fixed-line networksin Qatar, which plans to sell another fixed-line licence in May.
Eight companies, including Britain’s Vodafone Group Plc(VOD.L: Quote, Profile, Research) and U.S. firm Verizon Communications Inc (VZ.N: Quote, Profile, Research),expressed an interest in the country’s second fixed-linetelephone licence.
Qatar in December sold its second mobile phone licence to agroup including Vodafone, which will end the last mobiletelephone monopoly in the Arab world.
Qatar holds the world’s third-largest reserves of naturalgas. Its population is expected to rise to 1.34 million by 2015from 840,000 now, according to the telecom regulator. (Writing by Inal Ersan, editing by Will Waterman)
