The National Communications Regulatory Commission (NCRC) is to rule a 3G license tender null and void at a meeting of the tender commission on Nov. 27.
"Tomorrow we’ll gather the operators and explain to them the situation in connection with a presidential order, the instructions issued by the Public Prosecutor General’s Office and will take a decision not to hold the tender," NCRC head Serhiy Kolobov told Interfax-Ukraine.
He said that simultaneously, the commission would decide to return tender deposits to bidders.
The NCRC said that it had received instructions from the Public Prosecutor General’s Office to cancel the 3G license tender scheduled for Nov. 27, 2009, until the Defense Ministry, the Transport and Communications Ministry, and Public Prosecutor General’s Office carry out the conversion of the radiofrequency (RF) bands in keeping with the RF resource law and government resolutions in effect.
As reported, Ukrainian President Victor Yushchenko on Nov. 25, 2009, decided to suspend a Nov. 11, 2009 cabinet resolution on RF conversion for 3G, which again casts doubt of the lawfulness of the first 3G license tender, which was scheduled for Nov. 27, 2009.
The government’s decision will reduce the level of Ukraine’s defense potential, reads a presidential decree signed by the president on Nov. 25 and posted on his official Web site. According to Yushchenko, the government’s option suggests financing the conversion only in the future.
Earlier on the same day, a proposal to suspend the cabinet resolution was made by the National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) to the president. The proposal was approved following the council’s meeting onNov. 25chaired by NSDC First Deputy Secretary Stepan Havrysh with the participation of the chief of the General Staff and the commander of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, along with representatives of the Interior Ministry, the Security Service of Ukraine, and the state service for special communication and information protection.
"All of the participants in the meeting have agreed that the only possible way out of the situation … is the guaranteed financing of measures to assign RF bands, with the further transfer of those bands to special users after the replacement of radio-electronic equipment: first re-equipment, then allocation," reads an NSDC document.
According to the document, the RF conversion option offered by the government does not suggest a comprehensive approach, which would ensure a smooth transfer of the radio-electronic equipment of special users to other RF bands. Moreover, it does not take into consideration the real possibilities for that transfer.
Yushchenko in October 2009 suspended a resolution passed by the government to convert the RF bands, which foresaw a so-called "zero" conversion, i.e. the conversion did not suggest compensation for the expenditures related to the conversion.
A new resolution issued in November by the cabinet envisaged the fulfillment of the conditions put forth by the Defense Ministry, which insisted that Hr 2.51 billion should be set aside for the financing of the conversion. However, of that sum, Hr 940 million is to be earmarked in the budgets in 2010 and 2011 and Hr 1.57 billion in 2012 through 2014.
The adoption of the 100 MHz-wide RF band conversion is one of the conditions for holding the first tender to issue a 3G license, which is scheduled for Nov. 27, 2009. The National Communications Regulatory Commission (NCRC) offered mobile operators a 25 MHz band for 15 years at a starting price of Hr 400 million.
Bids for the tender were submitted by three leading mobile operators – CJSC Kyivstar GSM, CJSC Ukrainian Mobile Communications, and Astelit LLC, which have already transferred their tender deposits to the NCRC.
