The US company and Jamaican officials are negotiating the terms for a 15-year renewable license, but have yet to agree on a price, said Courtney Jackson, deputy director of Jamaica's utility regulatory office.

The government is asking US$50 million (Jamaican $2.9 billion) for the licence, while AT&T Wireless is offering a smaller amount in cash and services, Jackson said, without providing more details.

Still, Jackson said he expected both sides to reach a deal, probably before the end of the year.

The Redmond, Washington-based company could enter Jamaica's market within six to nine months after receiving its licence.

"A deal is going to be done," Jackson said. "There is a margin of difference between the price being asked by the government and what is being proposed by AT&T," but "everybody is budging."

AT&T Wireless was unavailable for comment.

The company would join Irish-owned Digicel and New York-based Oceanic Digital as the only cellular providers granted licences since Jamaica began opening its telecommunications sector in 2000.

Jamaica opened its sector fully on March 1, following many other English-speaking countries in the Caribbean that pledged to end more than four decades of monopoly by British telecommunications giant Cable & Wireless.

Jamaica has one of the region's fastest growing cellular telephone markets, with about 1.4 million mobile users on the island of 2.6 million.

AT&T Wireless split from Bedminster, New Jersey-based AT&T Corp in July 2001. It already operates in the Caribbean countries of St Lucia and St Vincent and the Grenadines, and recently acquired a license to operate in Grenada.

http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/magazines/Business/html/20031118T070000-0500_51761_OBS_AT_T_WIRELESS_CLOSE_TO_ACQUIRING_CELLULAR_LICENCE_IN_JAMAICA.asp