The Third Licence in Libyan Telecom Depends on the New Law

Today the Libyan telecom space is operated by a state monopoly holding that has grip on voice, data and international gateway. Eng. Usama Siala, Minister of Communications and Informatics of Libya, talks about specific problems of introducing the 3rd licence (3rd mobile operator) to the market.

“Let’s say for example there is a lot of talk about establishing a third license for a third operator in Libya, well with the existing law we cannot do that, but in the new law this has been taken into consideration,” explains Siala.

“In terms of the private sector’s participation in the telecom market specifically; we cannot continue the way we are today. Today we have a monopoly in this sector, everything is done by the government and we can see how the ICT sector affects the country’s GDP so we want to make sure that the private sector is there in this market.”

Siala hopes that the new law will enable the licencing of the 3rd operator and will allow for greater involvement of the private sector.

However, the introduction of the third operator has certain conditions, warns Siala: “I will not accept a third operator to come to Libya and only operate in the four main cities where the majority of the population is. I need to provide these services to all Libyans or at least to the great majority of Libyans and this is one of the things that this law will secure. I want to secure the interests of the subscribers and the interests of the Libyan government, and at the same time I want it to be easy for the investor to feel secure about their investment here in Libya. This is what the telecom law is focusing on.”

Thus, the introduction of the third licence depends on the adoption of the new law and conditions set by the ministry to bring value to all Libyans.