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America Movil to pay 2.1 billion pesos for AWS-1 and AWS-3 spectrum, AT&T faces lower bill.
Mexico’s telecoms regulator on Thursday confirmed that America Movil’s Telcel will pay 2.1 billion pesos (€107 million) for airwaves in the AWS-1 and AWS-3 bands, while rival AT&T’s bill comes in at MXN1.03 billion (€52 million)
The the Instituto Federal de Telecomunicaciones (IFT) announced the preliminary results of its recently-concluded auction two weeks ago, but said the numbers were still to be ratified.
This week it explained that the difference in the amounts to be paid by the two telcos stems mainly from variations in the value of the spectrum they contributed to the process; in order to take part in the sale, the operators had to agree to allow for the rearrangement of their current spectrum holdings to facilitate the creation of contiguous frequency blocks.
Telcel won six 5 MHz blocks of spectrum in the auction, two in the AWS-1 band and four in the AWS-3 band, for a total consideration of MXN2.13 billion.
AT&T picked up just two blocks of AWS-1 spectrum for MXN1.87 billion. Some AWS-3 spectrum remained unassigned.
The IFT’s calculations based on existing spectrum holdings reduced AT&T’s bill by the greater amount.
The telcos have 30 days to pay for their spectrum.
