In a statement issued on 27 October, William Fagan, the executive director of ictQatar, the country's telecoms regulator, said: "The process is going to take some months to complete. We do expect to issue the licence still before the end of the year."

When it finally gets the licence, Vodafone Qatar, the local subsidiary of the UK telecoms operator, will be able to start work on the fixed-line infrastructure that it needs to install.

Vodafone Qatar won the fixed-line licence on 15 September, allowing it to sell fixed-line services alongside its existing mobile phone offering in the country (MEED 15:9:08).

Fagan added that he wants Vodafone Qatar to offer broadband speeds of 100MB a second, which would be far faster than the broadband speeds currently available from incumbent operator Qtel.