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Government to make buildings available for mobile sites in order to cut costs, speed LTE network rollout.
Mexico will launch the tender for its wholesale mobile network project on Friday, Reuters reported this week following an interview with the country’s telecoms minister Monica Aspe.
The winner of the tender will be granted cheap access to spectrum in the 700-MHz band and a 20-year public private partnership to build out an LTE network. Mobile operators and MVNOs will then be able to rent capacity on that network.
However, the winner will not be permitted to sublet the spectrum, the newswire added, quoting Mexico’s communications and transport minister Gerardo Ruiz Esparza.
He added that the network will have to cover a minimum of 85% of the population.
According to government estimates, rolling out 85% coverage will cost around $3.5 billion, while reaching 95% would double the required investment to around $7 billion, Reuters said.
Meanwhile, Aspe’s team said the federal government will make thousands of sites on public buildings available to rent to the telecoms industry to help speed up the rollout of the network and keep costs down. The network will also be able to rent infrastructure from specialist towers companies like Telesites and American Tower.
Aspe said the government has held talks with Mexico’s mobile operators and believes they will be interested in renting out capacity on the network, although they would perhaps have preferred to see the spectrum auctioned off.
Players who wish to use the network will have to pass various tests to ensure they have no anti-competitive links to its operations, Aspe said.
