The reviews of the companies
Monday the 13th expired the term that Ursec had established so that the telecommunications companies could approach their opinions regarding the specifications for the auction. In this context, there were seven companies that contributed to the process from their point of view: Movistar, Claro, Antel, Dedicated, 5G Americas, GSMA and Assit.
The complaints of the first two are not surprising, since the tensions have been relatively public for a few months. In fact, the possibility for the firms to access the draft of the specifications at an early stage and to give their comments was something that was enabled after Movistar and Claro —the two private telecommunications companies that operate in the country— demanded a greater openness to dialogue with the actors which, finally, will carry out the installation and commissioning of 5G in Uruguay.
In this sense, the criticisms, as they had already anticipated, focused on two strong points: on the one hand, the antel advantages in the tender —which reserves one of the three blocks to be auctioned, limiting the participation of private parties to the two remaining blocks— and the base price for auction.
Regarding the first point, the companies consider that the advantage granted to the public company violates international treaties and leaves little spectrum available to carry out an open auction as proposed by the government. They also point out that it is a discriminatory and anti-competitive privilege that could even violate the Investment Promotion Law.
Regarding the base price, which is 28 million dollars and was already indicated in the government decree, they demanded that it be lowered to 20 million dollars, taking into account the additional investments that must be made to start up the 5G network. —both in legal and engineering terms.
They also requested to extend the term of the licenses from 25 to 28 years.
Added to this is the conflict with Dedicado, which maintains the intentional exclusion of its participation in the auction based on the inclusion of excessive requirements; while Movistar and Claro have not yet confirmed their participation in the process.
longstanding tensions
The truth is that the tensions in the telecommunications sector date back to before the auction of the 5G network, when the 3G and 4G spectrums were automatically renewed. At that time, the opposition denounced the attempt to benefit the companies that were awarded the networks —Movistar, Claro and Antel— by not calling the corresponding bidding process.
However, the company of Mexican origin also complained about the renewal, which considered the same amounts and exploitation terms assigned at first, since the price for the bands was high and unjustified. In response to the government decree, Claro filed a legal recourse against it.
Source: Ambito
