The Ministry of Communications and Technology announced at the end of November that it had pre-qualified five of the six operators that had applied to take part in the auction for a third mobile-phone licence. The ministry accepted offers from Etisalat of the UAE, Saudi Telecom, Qatar Telecom, France Telecom and Turkcell, but rejected the application of Iran's Tamin Telecom as it failed to meet the requirement to have substantial operations in more than one country (December 2010, Economic performance).

The ministry said that there would be a pre-bid meeting in Damascus, the capital, on December 8th, to allow the companies to discuss the auction conditions. This would be followed by the issue of a request for proposals four days later. These bids are scheduled to be opened in March.

Bidders that score at least 70% of the marks available for their technical and investment proposals will be invited to take part in a one-day auction at the end of the month. Local press reports have indicated that the base price will be about US$500m, and that each of the existing operators-Syriatel and MTN-will be required to pay this sum in order to convert their build-operate-transfer (BOT) contracts into licences. The ministry has specified that the new operator will be required to form a company in which the state-owned Syrian Telecommunications Establishment will hold a 20% stake, and that 25% of gross revenue will be paid to the state, in addition to 0.5% to finance the operations of a new regulatory agency, which is in the process of being formed.