MPVI hits the rocks before it even launches, online report says

Online news portal portfolio.hu quotes local daily Nepszabadsag as saying that would-be newcomer MPVI Mobil’s plan to launch Hungary’s fourth mobile network could founder before it even gets off the ground. The paper claims that the government has already given up on its plan to launch a new market entrant – although MPVI has not been informed of the decision – following a legal challenge to its licence award by the country’s three incumbents. MPVI is a consortium of Magyar Posta, Hungarian Development Bank subsidiary MFB Invest and the Hungarian Electricity Works (MVM), and the owners are understood to be in the throes of submitting an appeal to a court decision in September that nullified its frequency tender award. However, the state appears to have given up on the newcomer – a situation made worse after the judge leading the procedure, Gyorgy Mohai’s, recent statement that ‘the ruling is final, no appeal shall lie’. The court ruling came after Magyar Telekom (T-Mobile Hungary), Telenor Hungary and Vodafone Hungary claimed the state-owned telecoms start-up received an unfair advantage when it was awarded its frequencies.