It was pretty hard for Armenia to choose an alternative telephone
company that provides cellular phone connections, if we can call it an
alternative. The government organized a special meeting, deprived
“ArmenTel” of its monopoly on telecommunications, and immediately after
that formed a board that organized an “overnight contest”, where the
board decided to give “Karabagh-Telecom’s” sister company “K-Telecom”
the license for being the alternative telephone company. It is still
unclear as to what was the cause for this quick decision. However, we
get the impression that our authorities were not aimed mainly for
depriving “ArmenTel” of its monopoly and providing Armenia with a good
telecommunications, but rather to have “K-Telecom” be the second
telephone company for cellular phones. It has already been a couple of
days since Andranik Markaryan and David Harutyunyan are making
announcements, stating that it was a good deal and that it is more
important from a strategic point of view, as a means of saving
Karabagh’s telecommunications. The thing is that “Karabagh Telecom”,
which originates from Lebanon, is an organization which is unknown by
many in this region and is facing some dangers internationally.
Especially when there are sources claiming that the international GSM
association has threatened the company in depriving “Karabagh Telecom”
of membership. This is also the reason why the Armenian government was
urgent in making a decision so that it could fit in with the company’s
deadline. It all comes down to the fact that “Karabagh Telecom” entered
the telecommunications field in Armenia in order to continue its work
in Karabagh, which is the company’s priority. This is what the Armenian
authorities use as a reason for providing “K-Telecom” with the license
for the second cellular phone company. So, it turns out that this
company became the cellular phone service provider without
participating in any contest. It is ridiculous to call the government’s
“overnight contest” a contest, when there was not at least one other
company who had applied. Perhaps the reason for the government rushing
into things had to do with the fact that they did not want any other
company participating. After all, if that happened, then it would be
pretty difficult to come up with reasons as to why that company from
Lebanon won the spot. What’s interesting is that during all the
discussions regarding providing “K-Telecom” with the license, there is
more talk going around about the company working in Karabagh than there
is about the company being from Lebanon. In this case, it is kind of
unclear as to why the Armenian authorities claim that making
“K-Telecom” the second cellular phone company was a strategic step. How
much of a strategic step is it for Armenia to provide licensing to a
telecommunications company from the Arab world? After all, isn’t
Lebanon a member of the “Islam League” and always goes on the
“strategic enemies” side when it comes time to defend us? As for the
penalties, “Karabagh-Telecom” does not get freed from the danger of
penalties by getting a license to work in Armenia. If the Republic of
Armenia decides to take full responsibility and goes against the
penalties, then that is a different side of the story. If that company
does not carry out its obligations, then those obligations will be
Armenia’s obligations. In a word, if all of this was done for Karabagh,
(according to our state officials), then we can predict that if
“K-Telecom” faces any problems in the future, our authorities will
announce that they can solve all of them for the sake of Karabagh.
