MEXICO CITY -(Dow Jones)- Mexico's largest wireless phone service operator, Telcel, said Wednesday it has obtained a court ruling against limits on the amount of bandwidth it can acquire in a government spectrum auction.
The local unit of communications heavyweight America Movil SA (AMX) said in a press release that a court ruled in its favor against the limits set by the country's antitrust regulator, the Federal Competition Commission, or CFC.
Telcel's main rival in the Mexican wireless market, Spain's Telefonica Moviles SA (TEM), has an injunction against the spectrum caps, and a third operator, Unefon SA (UNEFON.MX), has also challenged them.
The CFC ruling set the maximum bandwidth that any one operator can acquire around the 1,900 MHz frequency at 35MHz, arguing that the caps would encourage the entry of new operators into the market. Phone companies have challenged them on the grounds that the original auction rules set a limit of a combined 65 MHz at the 1,900 MHz and 800 MHz frequencies.
The Federal Telecommunications Commission, or Cofetel, is auctioning four blocks of 10 MHz at the 1,900 MHz frequency in each of the country's nine wireless regions.
The CFC caps would limit Telcel to one block in each region while excluding Telefonica Moviles from acquiring any more bandwidth in five regions, including Region Nine which encompasses Mexico City and its 20 million inhabitants.
The limits exclude Unefon from acquiring any more bandwidth at 1,900 MHz, while the country's fourth wireless company, Grupo Iusacell, is largely unaffected since most of its spectrum is in the 800 MHz region.
Also participating in the auction is NII Holdings (NIHD), which operates trunking services in Mexico under the Nextel name.
The CFC has said it plans to defend its decision to limit the bandwidth operators can acquire. Cofetel has made no comment on the court actions and has continued with the auction that began last month.
The auction is set for seven rounds of bidding, with a third round scheduled for Feb. 22. Spectrum won't be awarded until the final round.
Telcel, Mexico's largest cell phone service provider, has 18.4 MHz of bandwidth at the 1,900 MHz frequency in each of the nine regions, including 8.4 MHz that it leases from Unefon.
The company has 28.9 million subscribers out of an estimated 37 million mobile phone users in the country. Telefonica Moviles has around 4.5 million subscribers.
-By Anthony Harrup, Dow Jones Newswires; (5255) 5080-3450, anthony.harrup@dowjones.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires"
Posted to the site on 2nd February 2005
Posted to: www.cellular-news.com/story/11891.php