Chile Antitrust Court Suspends Telefonica Moviles Auction

SANTIAGO -(Dow Jones)- Chile's antitrust court temporarily suspended an auction of mobile spectrum by the Chilean unit of mobile telephony company Telefonica Moviles, the court said on its Web site Thursday.

The auction, originally planned to go ahead Friday, was suspended due to a complaint by local rival Empresa Nacional de Telecomunicaciones, which accused Moviles of not complying with the deadlines established for the sale of 25 megahertz in the 800 MHz band.

"Telefonica Moviles ... wants to impose a period to deliver the entire spectrum ... over 42 months rather than the 18 months established by the court," said Entel in a press release.

Moviles has until July 2006 to sell bandwidth spectrum to comply with the court's approval of the local part of its takeover of BellSouth's Latin American operations.

Moviles sought a minimum $30 million for the bandwidth.

By taking over BellSouth, in Chile, Moviles jumped into first place in the market. It must sell the bandwidth, equivalent to 30% of its participation in the spectrum.

Concluding the auction as planned would leave Moviles with 55 MHz in the 800 MHz spectrum, compared with the 60 MHz of local rival Entel and the 30 MHz of Smartcom, a unit of Mexican wireless giant America Moviles.

Company Web site http://www.movistar.cl

-By Patricia San Juan, Dow Jones Newswires; 56-2-460 8546; patty.sanjuan@dowjones.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires "

Posted to the site on 6th April 2006