
The pre-qualified bidders are India-based Airtel, Malaysia's Axiata, Digicel, Vodafone/China Mobile, Millicom, Qatar's Ooredoo, France Telecom-Orange with Marubeni, Vietnam's Viettel, Singtel in a consortium with local operator M-Tel, MTN, Telenor and a consortium led by Japan's KDDI and Sumitomo. To qualify for the bidding, operators needed to show they had the necessary financial resources and technical expertise to roll out networks and services.
In the third and final stage of the process, they must submit detailed bids to the special committee at the Ministry of Communications and IT by 03 June. The ministry said it expects to announce the winners by 27 June.