Articles tagged with: Iusacell and Radio Spectrum

Mexico Raises Spectrum Cap on Forthcoming Auction

­The Mexican anti-trust commission, CFC has reviewed the details of the forthcoming radio spectrum auction and raised the spectrum cap to 90MHz per individual mobile network operator. The previous plans had imposed a limit of 80Mhz.  more

Related Tags: nextel, telefonica, telcel, america-movil, three, radio, Mexico

America Movil Joins Battle Against Mexico's Spectrum Caps

MEXICO CITY -(Dow Jones)- Mexico's biggest wireless phone service provider, America Movil SA (AMX), joined its main rival Wednesday in challenging radio spectrum limits set by the country's federal antitrust agency.  more

Related Tags: grupo-iusacell, nii-holdings

Possible merger of two Mexican networks

Both Vodafone and Verizon Communications have agreed to sell their stakes in the Mexican network operator, Grupo iusacell. Vodafone holds 34.5% of the company, while Verizon, which has management control of the company holds 39.4%. The sale is to Movil Access, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Biper, a publicly quoted paging company in Mexico. The price is understood to be just US$10 million, plus the company debt.Movil Access will launch tender offers in Mexico and the USA for all the shares of iusacell, subject to certain approvals. Verizon Communications and Vodafone Americas together own approximately 74% of iusacell's equity and have agreed to tender their shares to Movil Access. Approval to launch the tender offers is expected in mid July and, subject to satisfaction of certain conditions, the offers are expected to close in August.Movil Access is controlled by Ricardo Salinas, who also owns the country's fourth largest operator, Unefon, through his broadcasting subsidiary TV Azteca. Bringing the two networks under the control of a single company is a good indication of the intention to merge Unefon with iusacell - which is currently the number four network in the country.iusacell is currently in partial default on debts of US$811 million, and is constantly renegotiating with the banks to delay repayment deadlines. Only last week the company secured an additional extension of its temporary Amendment and Waiver of certain provisions and technical defaults under its US$266 million Amended and Restated Credit Agreement, dated as of March 29, 2001. The Amendment was originally scheduled to expire on May 22, 2003 and, in April 2003, it was extended to June 13, 2003. As modified, the Amendment is now scheduled to expire on June 26 2003, subject to earlier termination under certain circumstances.Any plans to merge the two networks could however be hampered by the fact that Unefon is itself also seeking to restructure some US$350 million of debt and is in technical default on a US$6 million vendor loan to Nortel Networks. Last year, Unefon filed a lawsuit in the USA against Nortel for US$900 million in losses and damages, alleging failure to comply with the terms of a contract.While merging the networks would lead to cost savings in CAPEX and staff, the combined defaulted debt may be too great for one single company to bear. The combined companies have a customer base of 3.5 million subscribers, ahead of Telefonica Movile's 2.2 million, but far behind the dominant operator, Telcel's 21 million subscribers. Both companies operate CDMA networks, so integration work would be eased, although there are spectrum overlaps in three licensed regions that would require some radio spectrum to be handed back to the government to bring the companies in line with a 35MHz spectrum cap."We envision that continued dynamism in the underserved Mexican wireless telephony market, together with the ample telecommunications infrastructure of iusacell and a solid business model going forward, will permit us to complete a successful turnaround benefiting iusacell's stakeholders," Biper chairman and group president Ricardo Salinas said in a statement." more

Related Tags: grupo-iusacell