Bogota’s city council has voted unanimously against the sale of the city’s shares in local telco Empresa de Telecomunicaciones de Bogota (ETB). Bogota owns 86.6% of the company, but recent funding problems prompted the city to seek a way to bankroll expansion and development. One of the options considered was the sale of some, or all of Bogota’s shares in the company. The option has proved very unpopular politically, and all 15 members of the city council voted against the sale. As previously reported by CommsUpdate, ETB is currently involved in talks with Brazil’s Telemar Norte Leste (Oi) and unspecified South Korean investors to secure capital for the failing company. According to Bogota’s treasury secretary, Hector Zembrano the company needed a capital injection of COP1 billion (USD565,000) to avoid being sold off.
According to TeleGeography’s GlobalComms Database, the number of PSTN lines supplied by ETB has been declining since 2007, dropping by 300,000 to 1.75 million in 2010.