April 15, 2014

PTA Clarification to news story by REUTERS:

With reference to a story of Reuters titled “Pakistan’s long awaited 3G, 4G auction draws disappointing bids” a spokesman of PTA has denied assertions made in the story as incorrect and baseless. The spokesperson said that the response received from 4 existing cellular mobile operators of Pakistan is very encouraging and satisfactory for the PTA.

The spokesperson said that it is entirely wrong to say that no cellular mobile operator has shown interest in 4G (1800 MHz) as it can possibly be the writer’s own wish but not the fact. It is also denied that representative of Ministry of Finance was at the bidding. First of all, no bidding happened and secondly the bids were received and processed by PTA only.

Similarly, details of the bids of the operators, contained in the said story, were also found to be incorrect. As per the Information Memorandum (IM), issued by PTA, no operator could bid for 5MHz. The minimum slot for which bid could be submitted was 10 MHz.

The spokesperson also said that PTA has already issued an official statement on April 14, 2014 stating that the demand is higher than the supply, therefore, auction will happen. Further, it was a matter of commonsense that had there been less or even same demand from bidders/operators there would have been no reason to go for the auction on April 23, 2014 and bidders would have the spectrum straight away.

The spokesperson deeply regretted that a world renowned news agency like Reuters has run a fabricated story on 3G / 4G auction and has failed to seek the version of PTA, the sole body responsible for auction. PTA reserves the right to proceed for appropriate legal action against the Reuters. In fact, the auction process is progressing efficiently and transparently in accordance with the rules.