Mirs Communications Ltd. is reconsidering and has decided not to try to thwart Golan Telecom's win in the tender for additional wireless telephony carriers, and will wait to see if Golan Telecom succeeds in securing a NIS 360 million guarantee. If Golan Telecom secures the guarantee, Mirs expects that the Ministry of Communications will lower the amount of the NIS 705 million guarantee that it requested of Mirs, and make it equal to the amount being asked of Golan Telecom, sources inform "Globes".
After the Gelfand Group was disqualified and replaced by Golan Telecom, Mirs, the other winner in the tender, had considered demanding that Golan Telecom should also be required to pay NIS 700 million, so that the two companies would be on a equal footing.
Mirs is now talking differently, and thinks that if Golan Telecom does succeed in securing a bank guarantee, then the amount of the guarantee that Mirs deposited should be lowered, since both the disqualified groups drove the tender price up to NIS 700 million, and ultimately did not meet their commitments. This caused Mirs damage by making it have to raise its tender bid. Therefore, Mirs believes that the tender committee should lower the guarantee that it has deposited, following the disqualification of 018 Xfone Communications Ltd. (controlled by Hezi Bezalel) and Select Communications Ltd. (controlled by Michael Gelfand).
Meanwhile, Mirs is continuing to build its new mobile network. Sources inform "Globes" that Mirs intends to make its first mobile call this October as part of trials and tests before the launching. According to its plans, the company will launch the network in the first quarter of 2012.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on July 20, 2011
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