Colombia’s Ministry of Information Technology and Communications (MinTIC) has cleared all six prospective bidders for 4G spectrum, to participate in the auction next week, BNamericas reports. The six bidders are as follows: triple-play provider Claro, a subsidiary of Mexican telecoms giant America Movil (AM); Movistar, a full-service telco owned 70/30 by Spain’s Telefonica and the Colombian government; state-backed broadband operator Empresa de Telecomunicaciones de Bogota (ETB) and Millicom International Cellular (MIC)’s Tigo Colombia have entering a joint bid; DTH service provider DirecTV, which was pipped to the post in the nation’s previous 4G sale; digital trunking company Avantel; and national fibre networking firm Aztec Communications.
As previously noted by TeleGeography’s GlobalComms Database, 225MHz of spectrum is up for sale in the following ranges: a single 5MHz block of 1900MHz spectrum, three licences for 2×15MHz of paired spectrum in the 2100MHz range and four 2500MHz permissions, consisting of three 2×15MHz blocks of Frequency Division Duplex (FDD) spectrum and a single 40MHz Time Division Duplex (TDD) concession. Claro will be restricted to bidding in the 2500MHz band, whilst Tigo and Movistar will be limited to the 2100MHz and 1900MHz ranges.