Mobile telephony company Wataniya, which is setting up a second cellular network in the Palestinian Authority, is threatening to withdraw from the project unless it receives the frequencies it was promised. The frequencies in question are allocated by the Israeli Ministry of Communications to its Palestinian counterpart, and the latter is supposed to allocate them to Wataniya. However, because of disputes between the two ministries, Wataniya has not received the frequencies and cannot operate the network, even though it has invested great deal of money in the license and in setting the network up.
The agreement between the Israeli and Palestinian communications ministries states that Wataniya will receive the frequencies gradually and will not receive the whole band from the first day of operating the network.
Further frequency allocations are conditional on the Palestinian communications ministry fulfilling its commitment to shifting frequencies belonging to the largest mobile telephony company in the Palestinian Authority, Jawwal, a unit of the Paltel group, and also on frequency shifts by Israeli company Partner Communications (Nasdaq: PTNR; TASE: PTNR; LSE:PCCD). The intention is that these companies will vacate certain frequency ranges so that Wataniya can start to operate.
However, the shifting of frequencies has been delayed, and Wataniya has decided to exert pressure of the Palestinian Authority, to which it paid hundreds of millions of dollars for the concession, to make it exploit all avenues so that Wataniya will receive the frequencies it was promised.
Sources in the Israeli Ministry of Communications say they believe that the pressure being brought by Wataniya is designed to divert attention from the fact that its cellular network is still not ready and is far from complete. This, the ministry says, is also behind the attempt to ask Tony Blair, the Quartet's envoy to the Middle East and the person who brought about the agreement on freeing up of frequencies by Israel, to intervene to try to resolve the matter.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes.co.il - on June 15, 2009
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