Malawi Mobile

cancelled

In May 2002, Malawi Mobile Limited (MML) was awarded the third mobile telephone licence in Malawi. The new company was a joint venture between a local consortium and Ubambo Investments of South Africa. The company wanted to introduce new technology, avoid duplicating services and take up the government's espoused target to extend to the rural areas of the country where 80% of the 12 million population of Malawi lived. MML was to compete against Celtel Malawi and Telekom Networks Malawi. Ericsson was going to supply MML with services, hardware, software and infrastructure for its GSM network over a three-year period at a cost of US$25 million. However, since receiving the licence in August 2002, MML had failed to launch services as of end 2004. In April 2005, Malawi's Communications Regulatory Authority revoked the license of Malawi Mobile, after having failed to rollout service prior to the deadline set by the government. 13 April 2005 WMRC Daily Analysis English Copyright 2005, World Markets Research Centre Limited. All Rights Reserved Malawi Mobile Ltd (MML), which was granted the country's third cellular licence in August 2002, has reportedly had its licence revoked and will not roll out a GSM network, even though contracts have recently been awarded for this. According to Reuters, the chairman of the Malawi Communications Regulatory Authority (MACRA - the regulator) said yesterday (12 April 2005) that 'MML was given 90 days from February from which to roll out or have its licence revoked ... those days are over and therefore (there is) no deal for them because they have failed to roll out since 2002 when they got the licence'. This follows MML's announcement in March 2005 that it had concluded a US$25 million contract with Swedish vendor Ericsson to supply GSM network infrastructure (see Malawi: 24 March 2005: MML Awards GSM Contract to Ericsson). The director of MML told reporters last week that the deadline had been extended and that fines had been paid.