Telstar, Green Dot Win Wireless Broadband Licenses

Trinidad & Tobago cable operators Telstar Cable System and Green Dot have each won 10-year spectrum licenses for broadband and wireless services, local paper Trinidad Guardian reported.

Telstar won all 12 blocks in the 12Ghz band at US$650,000 per block per year, meaning a total of US$7.8mn a year, the report said.

Green Dot took three blocks in the lower 700Mhz band, at US$177,000 per block per year, which adds up to US$531,000 a year, the report said.

In January 2007 five companies qualified to bid for this spectrum, but only three participated on the day. The third bidder, Open Telecom, did not win spectrum. Spectrum blocks in the 28GHz band were also on offer, but did not attract bids.

The telecoms regulator TATT will now make recommendations to Trinidad's minister of public administration to grant the relevant concessions for the winning bidders to begin laying the infrastructure for their wireless broadband services.

TATT hailed the auction a way to ensure that consumers have access to a variety of affordable information and communication technologies, such as high-speed data services, broadband internet and wireless subscription services, the paper said.

Posted to the site on 9th October 2007