Costa Rica to auction 3 mobile licences by April 2010
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Costa Rica’s Ministry of the Environment, Energy and Telecommunications (Minaet) will give away three mobile services provision licenses by April 2010. According to a media report, Minaet will establish the spectrum bands and sub-bands to be auctioned. Presently, the government is mulling two options to assign the spectrum. Minaet will either launch a traditional auction, where the operator offering more money wins the license, or a combined process including a pre-selection followed by an auction. The tender will be launched in September, with the first mobile license to be awarded between March and April 2010. Hannia Vega, Telecommunications Vice-Minister said that the first mobile concession winner is expected to launch operations at mid-2010. Four operators plan to bid for a mobile license, including Tigo-Amnet, Telefonica, Digicel and Cable and Wireless. “Costa Rica has a great potential, being one of the most important countries in the region in some country areas the penetration rate is low and this is an opportunity for us”, says Miguel Calderon, Telefonica’s director of strategy and regulation for Mexico and Central America. According to Gloria Ortega, CEO of Tigo Colombia, the operator plans to launch operations in Costa Rica as soon as possible via its subsidiary Amnet. According to C&W Panama CEO, Jorge Nicolau, investments to develop the necessary mobile telephony infrastructure in Costa Rica exceed USD 400 million.
Nar Mobile inks GPRS roaming agreements (Azerbaijan)
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Nar Mobile, the Azerbaijani mobile operator has inked a GPRS roaming agreement with Monaco Telecom in Monaco, Tele2 in Estonia and Colombia Movil in Colombia. Nar Mobile at present has 140 roaming agreements with 76 countries worldwide.
Movistar Colombia plans an investment of COP 465Bn in network expansion
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Movistar Colombia plans to make an investment of around COP 465 billion (approximately EUR 14 million) throughout 2009 to expand its GSM and 3.5G networks, launch new services and improve customers care services. According to Ariel Ponton, CEO of Telefonica Moviles Colombia, the operator will widen its 3G network to over 67 big and medium cities, covering an overall population of nearly 30 million inhabitants, up from the current coverage of 14 million people.
Movistar also plans to expand its GSM network. The operator also plans to install 499 radio bases in 100 new municipal nodes, to reach a total GSM network coverage of 923 towns and cities, out of Colombia’s 1,100 municipalities.
Colombia ends March with 41.41Mn subscribers, Comcel leads the market
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Colombia has ended March with a mobile subscriber base of 41.41 million, up by 1.7% from 40.74 million at the end of December 2008, reports country’s anti-trust agency.
Comcel held the largest market share of 67.2% up from 66.3% at the end of December. The operator ended March with a subscriber base of 27.84 million, rising from 27.02 million at December’08-end.
On the other hand, Spain’s Telefonica posted 9.81 million subscribers at March-end, experiencing a dip from 9.96 million subscribers at the end of December 2008.
Telefonica’s market share in Colombia dropped from 24.5% at December-end to 23.6% March-end.
Colombia Movil SA, the local unit of Millicom International Cellular SA, stood third with 3.76 million subscribers, up slightly from 3.75 million at December 2008 end. The company holds a 9.1% share of the Colombian market, down from 9.2% in December 2008.
Colombia sees 2.53Mn m-banking operations, gains acceptance
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Mobile banking, in Colombia, has started gaining acceptance, reports nation’s Ministry of Finance. In 2008, the country saw 2.53 million m-banking operations, of which 443,787 were used for COP 12 billion in transactions and 2.08 million to check account balances. The country’s m-banking platform is being offered by Redeban Multicolor in partnership with Gemalto. The platform enables prepaid and postpaid mobile subscribers to access their bank services.
The pioneering banks in this area are AV Villas, Bancolombia, Davivienda, BBVA and Banco BCSC Colmena.
Movistar Colombia introduces flat-rate tariff plan
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Movistar Colombia has introduced a new flat-rate tariff plan. This new plan targets ported subscribers, or prepaid subscribers who want to switch to postpaid services. The subscribers of this plan would be charged between COP 100 and COP 310 per minute (VAT included). They can also select up to three Movistar favourite numbers and make free calls up to 500 minutes or 1,500 minutes, depending on the selected package. The incumbent also offers a cost-control package, allowing subscribers to choose up to nine favourite numbers in the Movistar network and talk at discounted prices.
Colombia m-banking subscriber base crosses 9Mn mark
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Since the launch of mobile banking system in Colombia, the m-banking subscribers have crossed the mark of 9 million. Colombia has made an addition of 11,000 new m-banking customers per month, a report reveals. This service enables subscribers to use their mobile phones to consult their bank account balance, make money transfers and bill payments, as well as top-up prepay mobile phone accounts.
The incumbents like Comcel, Movistar and Tigo currently provide m-banking services as part of their value-added services portfolio.
The subscribers of Colombia made around 960,000 m-banking transactions, average generated by each subscriber is 8 m-banking transactions monthly.
Telefonica plans network expansion in Colombia
Telefonica will reportedly invest CLP465 billion (USD180 million) for its wireless network expansion in Colombia in 2009. The company is intending to increase coverage of its W-CDMA/HSDPA Movistar network to 30 million, equivalent to 67% of the population.
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America Movil subscriber base reaches 182.7Mn in Q4
America Movil has a subscriber base of 182.7 million with the addition of 10.1 million new mobile customers in the fourth quarter. The net mobile additions for the full year has reached 29.3 million, 2.3% more than in 2007, attributed to the strong growth in Brazil, Colombia and Mexico. The revenue for the fourth quarter is MXN 94.4 billion, up 11.6% from a year earlier. EBITDA has grown to MXN 34.9 billion, up 7.3%. Net profit has also shown improvement, grows to MXN 16.3 billion. According to the operator, data revenues rose 37 % from a year earlier thanks to launch of 3G services in several markets, and now account for 15% of service revenues.
Latin America welcomes 2009 with 388Mn mobile lines
Latin America, will reach the mark of 388 million mobile lines in service by the end of 2008, accounting for 9.6% of the overall mobile lines in service worldwide, according to a recent report. Brazil is anticipated to have 143.2 million phones, Mexico with 76.9 million and Argentina with 44.8 million lines by the end of this year. The entire population of only Uruguay and Chile is covered whereas in Ecuador and Colombia, the percentage reaches to 84. Bolivia has the lowest mobile coverage, reaching only 45.9% of the country’s population. Argentina has registered a higher mobile penetration than population coverage, with 102.2 mobile phones per 100 inhabitants. At the opposite pole, Peru, Mexico and Brazil exhibit the greatest gap between the population coverage and mobile penetration, the report reveals. Further the report exhibits that nearly seven out of ten countries in Latin America have over 48% prepaid users of the overall mobile lines in service.
In terms of Prepaid subscriptions, Venezuela tops the chart in Latin America with 95% of the total, subsequent to Bolivia with 94.6 percent, Mexico with 90.6 percent, while prepaid users in Peru, Colombia, Ecuador and Brazil account for over 80 % of the total subscription in each country.
