Viettel wins fourth mobile contract in Peru
Vietnam’s Viettel Group has won the contract to become Peru’s fourth mobile-phone operator.
Viettel is planning to invest about $27 million in the new network, scheduled to begin operations during the first half of this year. The tender was issued late Thursday by Peru’s agency for private investment promotion, ProInversion.
The three mobile operators already in Peru are: Claro, owned by Mexico’s America Movil SAB; Movistar, owned by Telefonica Moviles SAC, a unit of Spain’s Telefonica SA and Nextel del Peru SA, a unit of NII Holdings Inc.
Dominican Republic to invest $333 million in 2011
The Dominican Republic subsidiary of Latin American mobile giant America Movil has announced that it expects to invest around US$333 million in 2011.
According to reports, the unit, which currently operates under both the Claro and Codetel Dominicana banners, also revealed that from April 2011 it would no longer use the Codetel moniker, instead switching solely to the Claro brand in line with its parent company’s overarching group strategy.
As per Oscar Pena, Claro Dominicana’s President, having donated around US$200 million to support Haiti’s reconstruction in 2010 following the earthquake there it also spent around US$241.61 million on its domestic operations that year. This years’ investment is expected to be directed towards the development of new technologies.
Chile recorded more mobile phones than people
The Chilean government’s INE statistics institute has unveiled that there are more cell phones in Chile than there are people.
With 19.4 million cell phones distributed across the Andean nation as of October, there were nearly 1.1 cell phones for each of Chile’s estimated 17.1 million citizens.
According to INE, highlighting the explosion in cell phone penetration, in 2006 there were only 11.9 million cell phones for Chile’s then 16.4 million population. Between 2000 and 2009, Chileans made 94.5 billion domestic calls on their cell phones, racking up 126.7 billion minutes, and 264 million international calls, for some 788 million minutes. Meanwhile, Chileans are expected to make 3.87 million local landline phone calls this year, totaling 8.93 million minutes, up from 6.84 million calls and 14.8 million minutes totaled in 1998.
For the first 10 months of the year, Chileans made 430 million domestic calls and 32 million international calls on landlines. While, in 2009 Chileans made 62,278 calls on public pay phones, totaling 59,131 minutes, compared to 114,518 calls made in 2004 for 136,915 minutes.
The local unit of Spain’s Telefonica Moviles SA, Movistar, is the country’s largest cell provider with Entel PCS, a unit of Entel coming in second. Claro, owned by Mexico’s America Movil is third, and Nextel holds a minority stake in the local wireless phone service market.
Six submit bids for Brazil’s H Band auction
Anatel, Brazil’s national telecoms regulator has revealed that six groups have submitted proposals to bid for the country’s final 3G mobile frequencies the so-called H Band.
The six are domestic operators Vivo, Claro, TIM Brasil, Oi, Nextel and CTBC. The regulator has set up a Special Licensing Committee (CEL) which will assess the applications on 14 December. The H Band auction comprises 165 lots of spectrum with a minimum price of US$649 million, and US$410.31 million for leftover spectrum.
According to reports, at this stage though, only Nextel fulfils the basic stated requirement of the H Band auction i.e. as an iDEN digital trunking operator it will be classed as a new entrant in the GSM/W-CDMA market. As such, if it bids for the new licence it is understood that four GSM operators (Vivo, Claro, TIM Brasil and Oi) will be restricted to bidding for the frequencies as extension bands. If Nextel and CTBC fails to express an interest in the H Band, the other operators will be allowed to compete.
Anatel leads with H Band mobile auction (Brazil)
Anatel, Brazil’s telecoms regulator has reportedly rejected petitions to permit existing mobile operators to participate in the upcoming auction of H Band 3G mobile spectrum.
Earlier this year, Telemar Norte Leste (Telemar, or Oi) and SindiTelebrasil, an association representing local telephony companies, each submitted petitions to block the forthcoming auction of the H Band spectrum.
According to reports, with Anatel looking to start the tender to allocate the country’s last planned award of frequencies for 3G mobile services on 14 December, the two parties cried foul at the watchdog’s decision to prevent current operators Oi, TIM Brasil, Vivo Participacoes and Telecom Americas (Claro) from participating, saying it had failed to justify the reasons for their exclusion.
In their appeals, SindiTelebrasil and Oi argued Anatel was acting as a bar to competition and hampering the rapid launch of 3G services.
Costa Rican Mobile License Tender delayed yet again
The awarding of a mobile operator license in Costa Rica has been pushed back again till the mid- January 2011, marking the latest in a series of delays in breaking the monopoly held by the state-owned Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad (ICE).
The regulator, Sutel has previously stated that five companies – Cable & Wireless, Telef³nica, Claro, Digicel and Millicom – have requested the documents and are said to be serious about bidding. Six other companies are said to have requested the tender documents but are not considered serious contenders and may have been requesting the documents for informational purposes.
According to reports citing Carolina Mora, the spokesperson for Sutel, the company will submit the applications of three companies to the Executive Branch for review by mid-January 2011.
The government was obliged to open up the market to competition as a condition of entry into the Central American Free-Trade Agreement.
Brazil Mobile Penetration Reached 96%: 1.89 Million New Mobile Subscribes in July’10
Brazil saw a significant growth in its new mobile subscriptions as it grew to 187 million in July, the telecommunications regulator Anatel revealed.
1.89 million new subscriptions were added in the month of July, an increase of 1.02% compared to June. Brazil has recorded 13.06 million new users in 2010.
Brazil now has 96.83 mobile phone users for every 100 population by now. Of the total number of mobile phones, almost 80% are prepaid and the remaining 20% postpaid.
Vivo remained the market leader with 30.25 percent of the total and is closely challenged by Claro 25.42%, TIM 24.05%, Oi 19.93% and others 0.35%.
Argentina to finally launch number portability system
Argentina users will soon to have number portability services as the Argentinean government has passed the order for the introduction of the portability system in the country.
According to reports, a decade after the publication in the Official Gazette of the document that originated the present announcement, President Cristina Fernandez has now ordered the regulation of the number portability system for mobile phone users.
Argentina’s telecommunications secretariat Secom’s decree 98 specified that the portability system will be made available the next year. The portability system execution is likely to entail overall investments of around US$ 40 million. With 35 million subscribers and 4 operators (Movistar, Claro, Personal and Nextel) in the local market, MNP will play a crucial factor in determining future market dynamics.
Brazil’s mobile base increases by 0.67% in Feb
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: With an increase of 0.67 percent on the total number of mobile lines in January, the mobile phone base of Brazil reached 176.8 million in February. The latest data has been published by Brazil regulator Anatel.
Almost 1.2 million phones in the country were added in the month of February which has been the second best performance in the month after 2008. The month of February was ended by Vivo on a good note as its market share went up from 29.87 percent in January to 29.93 percent.
With a market share of 25.50 percent against 25.52 percent in January, Claro stood at the second spot. TIM Participacoes held third position with 23.65 percent market share, up from 23.63 percent in January, while Oi finished the month with 20.56 percent against 20.61 percent in January.
12.96 million mobile lines received 3G mobile services.
Claro Argentina plans investment of USD800m in 2010
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: An investment of around USD800 million has been planned by Argentina’s leading mobile operator by subscribers, Claro. Claro’s total capital expenditure last year was around USD700 million.
Company’s third-generation and fibre-optic networks will receive roughly 70% of the CAPEX, in order to support increasing demand for advanced services.
According to Claro’s president, Carlos Zenteno, 3G subscribers comprise around 20% of Claro’s approximately 17 million wireless customers, while the 3G network reaches 450 cities, covering 80% of the population.
