MinCom Assigns 55 WiMax Licenses

Colombia's communications ministry Mincomunicaciones (MinCom) has assigned 55 departmental WiMax licenses for the 3.5GHz spectrum band, MinCom said in a statement.

The ministry received 161 proposals from 24 companies on August 14 to provide services in the country's 32 departments but has repeatedly delayed announcing the winners and delivering the licenses, the date for which was originally set as 15 working days after the proposals were opened on August 17.

Cable operator Cable Unión de Occidente received 19 licenses, operator Comcel, a unit of América Móvil, received 13, while mobile carrier Avantel received seven, Comunicaciones Satelitales de Colombia six, Cablecentro five, and Emcali two, and operators Empresa de Telecomunicaciones de la Orinoquía, Wireless Colombia and Servisatélite received one license each.

From the word go the auction was marred with controversy as several competitors such as mobile carrier Avantel accused the country's dominant mobile operator Comcel of delivering its proposal five minutes late. The ministry said that Comcel's proposal was delivered on time.

"We expect that the operators that have been awarded the licenses to offer wireless broadband service will allow the country to be better communicated and to expand technologies across the country," communications minister María del Rosario Guerra said.

"The challenge is huge but I know that all of these operators will immediately proceed to generate all the required infrastructure across the country so that Colombia closes the digital divide that we have," she added."

Posted to the site on 27th December 2006