"Operators wishing to bid for an international licence will have to bid for either a local loop or long-distance licence. Bids for a whole package comprising the three types of licences will be given preferential treatment," said an ANRT official.
Fixed-line phone services in Morocco offer high growth potential due to a low penetration rate of only 4.3 percent of the 30-million population, analysts say.
A sector analyst, noting the North African country has fewer than 100,000 internet subscribers, said the new competition offered the prospect of greater use of phone lines for data and the internet.
Rabat hopes the fixed-line liberalisation will repeat the success of the sale in 1999 of a 15-year mobile phone licence to Meditelecom, a consortium led by Spanish Telefonica.
Meditelecom's arrival has triggered a price war with Maroc Telecom, which operates the first mobile phone licence. In five years, the number of mobile phone users in the country has multiplied 35 times to nearly 10 million in 2004.
Meditelecom, which holds a 30-percent mobile market share, has repeatedly said it wants to bid for a fixed-line licence.
Maroc Telecom's fixed-line business has 1.3 million users and generated a turnover of 11.2 billion dirhams ($1.32 billion) in 2004, or 52.4 percent of the company's overall sales.
The firm has lost more than 200,000 fixed-line subscribers, mainly to attractive mobile phone packages, but analysts see it coping well with competition.
"Maroc Telecom can show greater resilience in the fixed-line than in the mobile segment," said a fund manager who closely follows the stock, listed in Casablanca and Paris.
Developing a fixed-line phone network often needs heavier investment for infrastructure than the mobile segment, he said.