More than a year after it concluded its auction of 700 MHz spectrum, Chile’s telecom regulator has begun the process that will lead to operators actually receiving their licences.
The process has been delayed by a series of legal issues, but regulator Subtel will this week send the relevant licensing decrees to the government’s comptroller general, Diario Financiero reported on Monday. However, it noted that the allocation could still take six months.
Chile raised 11.53 billion pesos (€15 million) from the sale of 700 MHz spectrum to its big three mobile operators – Entel, Telefonica’s Movistar and America Movil’s Claro – in February last year.
However, lawsuits brought by consumer association Conadecus and telecoms service providers Netline and Telestar interrupted the allocation process. The three claimed that the spectrum contest served to extend the dominance of the big three.
Their suits were ultimately rejected, Diario Financiero said, freeing up Subtel to move forward with the formal allocation process.
A case brought by Conadecus in front of the free competition court – or el Tribunal de Defensa de la Libre Competencia – is ongoing, but that will not stand in the way of the licensing process since the defendants in that case are the three licence winners and not the government, the paper said.
The paper also revealed that Nextel, which has a minute share of the Chilean mobile market, is petitioning the government to allow it access to some of the 20 MHz block of 700 MHz spectrum that is reserved for emergency use. It has proposed exchanging some of its existing spectrum for a portion of that 20 MHz, amongst other alternatives.
