Mexico’s Telecommunications and Transport Ministry (SCT) will publish the preliminary bidding terms for the national shared network project on 17 July, local daily El Financiero reports.The Ministry aims to launch the tender on 29 October and to…
Mexico’s Telecommunications and Transport Ministry (SCT) will publish the preliminary bidding terms for the national shared network project on 17 July, local daily El Financiero reports.
The Ministry aims to launch the tender on 29 October and to announce the winning bidders by the first quarter of 2016, Edgar Olvera, STC coordinator for technical-regulatory projects, was quoted saying.
The ministry received 36 expressions of interest in the project, which is based on a private-public partnership (PPA) scheme.
Interested parties reportedly include China Telecom, Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, Cisco Systems, Huawei, Nokia, Motorola Solutions and Alestra.
In an interview with Reuters last month, SCT deputy minister Monica Aspe said the ministry had slashed the budget for its planned shared network project by almost a third to US$7bn from an initial US$10bn, reducing the estimated number of base stations required from 20,000 to 12,000.
The government will devote 90 MHz of spectrum in the 700 MHz band to a nationwide 4G/LTE wireless broadband network aimed at improving nationwide mobile coverage and penetration, particularly among under-served communities.
Critics of the project have argued that a state-controlled infrastructure network cannot be competitive and guarantee a good service for its users, warning that the initiative could dissuade operators from investing in their own networks.
However, in an interview with Telecom Finance in March, Fernando Borjon, commissioner at Mexican regulator IFT, rebutted criticism, pointing out that the government’s involvement in the plan will be limited to providing infrastructure, including spectrum released by the transition to digital terrestrial television, the fibre optic infrastructure of the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) and other state-owned assets, as well as rights-of-way to access the spectrum.
