Some Philippine congressmen are calling for the nullification of 3G licenses of four telecommunications companies -- Smart, Globe, Digitel, and CURE (Connectivity Unlimited Resources Enterprise Inc.) -- declaring that the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) broke the law in awarding licenses without bidding.

The term 3G is shorthand for the next generation of mobile communications networks running on the WCDMA (Wireless Code Division Multiple Access) platform. The technology allows faster data transmission speeds, making possible high-speed data communications and mobile multimedia services such as video conferencing, audio streaming and mobile Internet.

'If you put up the prices of biddings too high, the business will go bankrupt,' said Smart public affairs chief Mon Isberto, in an interview with Computerworld Philippines.

Isberto cited as an example the cellular companies in Europe that spent over a hundred billion U.S. dollars in the bidding of 3G licenses and are now in deep debt. 'In Europe the bidding process produced a situation in which all of the major cellular players ended up in deep debt.'

He explained the 3G licensed companies in Europe are still recovering from the biddings since they spent so much in acquiring the licenses alone without rolling out their networks.