The Nextel-Televisa consortium has finally been awarded a 30MHz block in the 1.7GHz band despite calls for a Congressional enquiry into the frequencies sale tender.
Javier Corral from the ruling centre-right party, Partido Acción Nacional had led a…
The Nextel-Televisa consortium has finally been awarded a 30MHz block in the 1.7GHz band despite calls for a Congressional enquiry into the frequencies sale tender.
Javier Corral from the ruling centre-right party, Partido Acción Nacional had led a cross-bench revolt at the award of the licence to Nextel-Televisa, as he believed that the purchase price of Ps180.3 (US$14.2 million), in an auction where Nextel-Televisa was the only bidder, offered poor value to the Mexican people.
In a similar auction for the same amount of spectrum, America Móvil and Telefónica spent a combined Ps5.1bn (US$400m) in comparison.
Corral’s calls for the results of auction 21 to be invalidated led to a meeting of Mexico’s telecoms regulator, Cofetel, on Friday. This meeting was abandoned as the regulator did not reach quorum in order to vote on whether the spectrum should be awarded to Nextel-Televisa. Two of the five plenary members did not turn up at the meeting.
The meeting was rescheduled for Monday and in the ballot it was confirmed that the Nextel-Televisa consortium would be awarded the disputed spectrum. Cofetel said: “No legal impediment exists to prevent the auction winners from assuming control of the airwaves”, in a statement.
Gustavo Cantu, a vice president of Nextel’s Mexico unit, said the companies would now invest Ps19bn (US$1.5bn) over the next six years to improve wireless service in addition to the payments for the airwave rights. He was speaking to Radio Formula in Mexico.
“We’re ready to bring third- and fourth-generation to Mexico,” he said.
