HT Mostar was granted Bosnia's third GSM-900 licence on 12 July 2004. The licence will be formerly awarded within 30 days. It is valid for 15 years and the fee was set at BAM 140 million (USD 89 million). Talking to EMC, the Communications Regulatory Authority (CRA) said that HT Mostar would have to reach an agreement with Eronet over the deployment of the mobile network. Eronet has been operating in Bosnia since September 2000 but without an official licence, and Hrvatski Telekom (Croatia) is a shareholder in both Eronet and HT Mostar.
Although it did not take part in the tender, Eronet was eligible to bid for the licence following the sale of a 4.48% stake in Eronet by the Hercegovacka Bank to the municipality of Grude on 17 December 2002. This sale meant that the company was partially state-owned and therefore could have received a permanent licence. Meanwhile, the CRA reported that one other local private company's bid for the licence had been turned down.
CRA reiterated to EMC that it would not be issuing a fourth GSM licence, despite confirming that there had been interest in a licence from Telecom Austria, which is looking to expand further within the Central and Eastern Europe region. Telecom Austria has also been courting Bulgaria's largest operator MobilTel, but recently terminated negotiations as it wanted to acquire a majority stake and MobilTel was only looking to sell a minority stake. In May 2004 MobilTel was acquired by BidCo, a firm 40% controlled by MobilTel Holding GmbH (the previous 100% owner) and 60% by a consortium of seven equity funds including ABN AMRO and Citigroup Investments.
CRA also confirmed that Bosnia's existing two licensees, publicly-owned Mobilna Srpske and GSM BiH, will each now be required to pay the same fee as HT Mostar. The operators both received licences in 2001 but without paying any fees. Bosnia's third licence, according to the regulator, was issued with a view to lowering the overall price for mobile services and stimulating the development of new products and services within the market.
According to EMC data, the total number of mobile subscribers in Bosnia reached almost 1.2 million at the end of March 2004, equivalent to a penetration rate of around 30%, well below the average for the Central and Eastern Europe region.
