Applications for virtual telecommunications licenses in Saudi Arabia have been submitted by five companies, amongst them Virgin Mobile Middle East & Africa.
VMMEA is partly owned by the Virgin Group of Richard Branson, is going up against known firms such as Axion from Dubai, as well as other consortiums headed by Saudi Arabian firms FastNet and Safari. Another bidder is Lebara, which is based out of London. The five were confirmed to have submitited as indicated in the website of the Saudi Arabian Communication and Information Technology Commission website.
The plan would be CITC selling three mobile virtual network operator or MVNO licenses as part of the plan to expand the Gulf kingdom's telecom market. The country is the second one of the six Gulf Cooperation Council members to allow MVNOs after Oman sold off their own.
The kingdom currently has three mobile operators, namely Saudi Telecom Co, Etihad Etisalat (Mobily) and Zain Saudi, each expecting to host a MVNO in its network, as MVNOs do not own the networks but only lease capacity from operators.
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