(Adds background and comment from Vodafone)
CAIRO, June 19 (Reuters) - Orange Egypt said onSunday that Egypt's telecommunications regulator had asked it topay 3.54 billion Egyptian pounds ($399 million) for a licence tooffer fourth-generation mobile phone services.
The regulator had asked it to pay 100 million Egyptianpounds to acquire a fixed-line licence and 1.8 billion pounds tooffer international calls, Orange Egypt said in a statement.
Orange Egypt said it was looking into the licence offers andhad yet to make a decision.
Egypt is selling the 4G licences as part of a long-awaitedplan to reform the country's telecoms sector and the regulatorhas confirmed that it approached the three companies thatcurrently offer mobile services about buying them.
Telecom Minister Yasser al-Qadi told television channel CBClast month that Egypt was planning to offer high-speed 4Glicences to companies already operating in Egypt.
The reforms will allow Egypt's land-line monopoly TelecomEgypt (TE) to enter the mobile phone market directlywhile allowing mobile operators to offer fixed line services,ending its domination of the sector.
TE, which is majority owned by the government, said onSunday it had also been granted a 4G licence. It was not clearhow much TE, which does not offer its own mobile services butdoes own a stake in Vodafone Egypt, would pay for the newspectrum.
"This move will enable TE to fulfil our long awaited goal ofbecoming a total telecommunications operator, by offering mobileservices," TE CEO Tamer Gadalla said in a statement.
It was not clear what would happen to the Vodafone Egyptstake if TE begins offering mobile services directly. Underprevious reform plans, which have since been scrapped, TE wouldhave had to dispose of its stake.
Vodafone Egypt said it received an offer from thetelecoms regulator a week ago, but declined to give any numbers.
Khaled Hegazi, external affairs and legal director atVodafone Egypt, said, however, that not all the mobile serviceproviders had necessarily been offered the same prices or terms.
"Each company has specific conditions that are consideredcompetitive. We receive different offers based on each company'scondition in the market," he told Reuters.
Etisalat, which also provides mobile services inEgypt, was not immediately available to comment. (Reporting by Ehab Farouk, Lin Noueihed and Ola Noureldin;Editing by Alexander Smith)
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