S'pore approves bids for 3G mobile phones

S'pore approves bids for 3G mobile phones

SINGAPORE (AP): Singapore said Friday it had approved four applications from telecom companies who want to bid for a third- generation mobile phone license in the city-state.

Because only four companies applied to bid for four licenses, there may be no need for an auction, said Dulcie Chan, spokeswoman from the Infocomm Development Authority.

The four bidders are Singapore Telecommunications' unit Singapore Telecom Mobile, MobileOne, StarHub Mobile, and Sunday Holdings, a subsidiary of Hong Kong's Sunday Communications.

There are four airwave spectrums to be given out, and since one is slightly larger than the others there may be a need for an auction to determine who gets the big one, Chan said.

The government said in a statement Friday that it would announce on April 11 whether it would have an auction.

Third generation mobile phones are like handheld computers that can be used to access the Internet, send e-mail, broadcast movies, play video games and make telephone calls.

European telecommunications have spent billions of dollars on 3G licenses in what some consider to be a giant gamble on an unproven future market.

The minimum price for the licenses in Singapore is S$100 million (US$55.9 million).

"If everyone agrees to what they want there's no need to do any bidding at all," said Tjandra Kartika, telecoms analyst at local brokerage GK Goh. "You will get one for sure. Why would you want to bid?"

Kartika said it is illegal for the four companies to get together and decide on their own the details of who gets which airwaves.

"SingTel will probably have more capacity to bid and I think it will be silly for StarHub or M1 to try to match SingTel's number," he said. "At the end of the day if it's taken, they can take their second preference."

The auction, if there is one, would be held on April 23.