Icasa made the announcement today, and said that MultiChoice and e.tv will be awarded their licenses next week after the terms and conditions of the licenses are negotiated. It brings clarity and a start-up finality (the licensees have 12 months in which to launch their respective mobile TV service offerings) to a drawn-out, cumbersome, burdened bureaucratic and intricately complex bidding, -rebidding and stalled application process by Icasa that was stretched out over years.
After e.tv applied in April and Icasa proceeded with that application, Icasa again asked for applications during a second round in June. Then MultiChoice (initially disqualified because of an Icasa technicality) applied again with Super 5 Media. On August 27 Super 5 Media withdrew its application and declined to participate further. This left MultiChoice as the only successful applicant for the second round. That means that e.tv and MultiChoice are the only two successful applicants for the radio frequency spectrum they applied for.
ALSO READ: Icasa set to announce the successful applicants for DVB-H mobile TV licences on Friday.
