Telenor (News - Alert) and Ooredo (Qatar Telecom) each have won new mobile licenses in Myanmar, competing against existing providers Myanmar Posts and Telecommunications (MPT) and Yatanarpon Teleport Co.

Both new service providers must build networks providing a minimum of 75 percent geographic coverage for each region and state, for voice services, five years after the effective license date.

France Telecom (News - Alert) (Orange) and Marubeni Corporation, bidding together, was selected as the alternate licensee, should Telenor or Ooredo not meet the requirements.

The license awards came as Myanmar’s Parliament unanimously voted to delay the process, in view of a proposed bill to revise the country’s telecommunications law, including a provision requiring all applicants to have local partners.

The new telecom bill would require all foreign companies bidding or operating in Myanmar to have a local partner.

Apparently, none of the winning bidders, or the The Orange (News - Alert)-Marubeni consortium, have local partners.

Myo Swe, the member of Parliament who proposed the vote, said the "industry risked being monopolized" if the winners were announced before a telecommunications law was in place.

Myanmar, with 60 million people, has mobile penetration of less than 9 percent.

The 15-year wireless licenses take effect in September 2013 and would represent the largest foreign investment in Myanmar since a semi-elected government took power in 2011, ending decades of military rule.

In a way reminiscent of the 1980s cable franchising wars in the United States, applicants were campaigning for themselves across Myanmar, especially in the commercial capital of Yangon, the Wall Street Journal reports.

SingTel ads appeared on phone booths in Yangon while billboard ads appeared elsewhere.

Digicel (News - Alert) was confident enough to have already begun hiring local staff in country.