Archive: 3G licence for MediaRing?

On 10th March, 2001, near the eve of the deadline of final submission of bids for Singapore 3G licences, I sent a note to one of Mediaring's early investors encouraging them to bid for a 3G licence in Singapore. The suggestion was not taken up.

Should Mediaring bid for the 4th 3G licence? The threshold is now S$100 million, add another $200 million for the roll out.The mood for licences is probably at the absolute trough at the moment, so the intrinsic value of the licence is probably be higher than this. There is also huge option value on the 3G business. and I'd bet, come next year, the big players will want in on the 3G market in Singapore, if only to make life difficult for Singtel on its home turf (Scenario: Singtel wins Optus bid, becomes real regional competitor to Vodafone, Vodafone is cheesed off, buys 3G network of Mediaring to challenge Singtel's home turf).

Mediaring too will have a definite business plan and focus, which the market will welcome, particularly a year down the road.Their investment bankers, Societe Generale, are itching for a deal, a secondary placement to raise funds after the bid is successful will probably have a high chance of success. Hey, and there's a lot of money in the latest US$900m Pacven fund to subscribe for a placement.

The technology strategy will primarily be to build an open system that can easily be integrated with that of acquirer's sytem, whichever platform they specifically choose in the end.The business strategy will be to buy low, build a flexible open system on a small scale (get a large line of credit from Ericsson/Nokia, on a "pioneer/testbed" status), and then sell high.It's a crazy idea, but...