Telefonica Colombia (Movistar) has reached an agreement with DirecTV Latin America to acquire the group’s 4G broadband assets in Colombia. At present, DirecTV serves approximately 200,000 internet clients in Colombia, of which 60% have their service packaged with a TV subscription. The agreement between the two companies has established that these customers will maintain their TV plan with DirecTV, while Movistar assumes responsibility for the internet service. Going forward, the transaction will be submitted to the telecoms regulatory bodies and the competition authorities for review. The value of the transaction has not been disclosed.
Fabian Hernandez, CEO of Telefonica Colombia, commented: ‘[This deal] will allow us … to strengthen our operation by having additional spectrum to support the growth of mobile data traffic that we have been observing in recent months, especially since the start of the pandemic.’
According to TeleGeography’s GlobalComms Database, satellite pay-TV provider DirecTV Colombia won its 4G concession in June 2013, securing 2×15MHz of FDD-LTE spectrum and a 40MHz block of TD-LTE spectrum in the 2600MHz band, paying COP72 billion (USD19.2 million) and COP78 billion, respectively. DirecTV went on to launch its LTE-based 4G wireless broadband service in July 2014. The business is owned by US-based holding company Vrio Corp, which has itself been owned by US telco AT&T Inc since July 2015.