The Afghanistan regulator has launched a competitive tender for the construction and operation of the country’s first telecommunications satellite at 50E.
The Afghanistan Telecom Regulatory Authority (ATRA), which is responsible for the auction…
The Afghanistan regulator has launched a competitive tender for the construction and operation of the country’s first telecommunications satellite at 50E.
The Afghanistan Telecom Regulatory Authority (ATRA), which is responsible for the auction process, announced the tender on 9 October and will be accepting proposals until 9 December 2012. The licence will be awarded on 19 February 2013.
SatelliteFinance reported back in April that Amirzai Sangin, Afghanistan’s minister of communications and information technology (MCIT), was inviting bids from investors, although this was not officially confirmed at the time.
“Any satellite operator is welcome to bid, or propose any other options,” Abdul Malik Nazari, board member at ATRA, told SatelliteFinance. “We have already had interest via email and phone but we have not received the bidding documents yet, so I don’t want to talk about the companies involved.”
Nazari said the cost of the bid would depend upon which option ATRA chose after the December deadline.
Part of the satellite’s capacity must be reserved for state use such as public communications, but the rest can be used for private companies. Foreign investors are welcome to submit proposals.
Nazari would not confirm whether more satellites would be launched in future but said it was a possibility, as Afghanistan’s mountainous landscape make communications via terrestrial networks difficult.
In nearby Azerbaijan, the Ministry of Communications and Information Technologies chose the route of entering into a partnership with Malaysian satellite operator Measat for a new satellite.
The project, which was formalised between Measat and state-owned satellite operator Azercosmos back in May 2010, will see the dual named Azerspace-1/Africasat-1a launched by Arianespace at the end of 2012/early 2013.
