Undeterred by the lack of interest in its recent attempt to stage a multi-band frequency auction, Colombia’s Ministry of Information Technologies and Communications (Ministerio de Tecnologias de la Informacion y las Comunicaciones, MinTIC) says it will now run the spectrum sale on 20 December. Relaunching the process, ICT minister Sylvia Constain commented: ‘This is an auction that is not looking to maximise financial income, but to maximise social welfare. The resolution presented today has very clear objectives to connect Colombians, especially those who are in the most remote and disadvantaged places.’
As previously reported by TeleGeography’s CommsUpdate, the first attempt had been scheduled to take place on 12 December, but stalled after only market leader Claro registered to participate. It was suggested that Tigo and Movistar were reluctant to enter the fray because of the lack of published reserve prices. Would-be bidders must now register their interest by 2 December.
The spectrum auction is slated to include 2×45MHz blocks of 700MHz spectrum (703MHz-748MHz/758MHz-803MHz) split into four 2×10MHz blocks and one 2×5MHz portion; plus a 2×2.5MHz 1900MHz block and eight 10MHz blocks in the 2500MHz band.