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SUTEL publishes auction guidelines that could allow new players into Costa Rica’s mobile market.
Costa Rica’s telecoms regulator has published details of its upcoming mobile spectrum auction, which is designed in such a way that it could attract new players into the market.
The Superintendencia de Telecomunicaciones (SUTEL) has 35 MHz of paired spectrum to auction off that remained unsold after a previous spectrum allocation process in 2010-11, comprising 2×20 MHz of 1800-MHz frequencies and 2×15 MHz in the 1900 MHz/2100 MHz band. The spectrum will be auctioned off in 5-MHz blocks.
It aims to carry out the auction in the first half of 2017.
The sale could attract newcomers to the Costa Rican mobile market. It will be open to any mobile network operator provided it has five years’ experience in the telecoms market in at least one country, SUTEL said. Participants must also have an annual gross income equal to 50% or more of the reserve price of the seven spectrum blocks.
The regulator published the guidelines late last week in a preliminary document. It will set out reserve prices for the spectrum in a later, finalised paper.
The previous auction in Costa Rica, the results of which were announced in early 2011, led to the launch of two new operators – Telefonica and America Movil’s Claro – in competition with then-monopoly player, state-owned incumbent ICE. That process generated US$170 million for state coffers.
