Scancom officially awarded GSM licence

THE GOVERNMENT yesterday awarded its first private sector GSM licence to the Lebanese-backed Scancom group.

In the island’s first foray into telecoms deregulation in October, Scancom placed a winning £12.75 million bid for the 20-year concession, more than double the minimum £5.7 million set by regulators when bidding began.

Greece’s Cosmote, which had been widely seen as the favourite pulled out at £12 million.

Telecommunications Regulator Vasos Pyrgos and the Director of the Communications Department of the Ministry of Communication and Works, Stelios Himonas, yesterday presented Scancom (Cyprus) Ltd with a special licence for the use of radio frequencies and for the founding and operation of a public mobile phone network and services on the island.

“This is the final act for the liberalisation of the telecommunications sector on the island,” Pyrgos said.

Speaking at the ceremony, Azmi Mikati, the director of Investcom, Scancom’s parent company, pledged the company would offer much more than what had been presented in the proposal.

“You are at the final stage, but we are only in the beginning,” he said.
“I can assure you that the consumer will be completely satisfied with the outcome in telecommunications.”

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.