A few days after the auction for the spectrum of the 5G network in Uruguay, and although no big surprises are expected between now and Tuesday the 9th, the telecommunications companies attended the Senate Industry Committee to address the challenges to the government’s competitive process that they still maintain.
The process for the award of the first three blocks for 5G technology in the country is days away from coming to an end with the call that will finally take place next Tuesday. However, the criticisms and doubts on the part of the only two private companies prequalified for the final instance, Clear and Movistar—Antel has reserved the third block—, as well as the local company, Dedicated, continue to resonate in the auction.
Faced with this, the delegations representing the three companies attended the Industry Committee of the Senate on Wednesday. There, the representatives of Movistar presented a document in which they maintain that “it is not simply a question of auctioning radio frequencies”, which would only be “the first step”, but of establish conditions “so that networks can be developed to provide this technology”. In this sense, they warn that “current conditions do not facilitate such deployment for private operators.”
This is a complaint that the telephone company that operates in Uruguay raised from the first moment the specifications with the bases and conditions for the auction were known — and for which it filed an administrative appeal that, finally, was lifted by the Ministry of Industry, Energy and Mining (MIEM). For the private operator, the conditions do not enable the contracting of fiber optics from Antel nor the deployment of their own networks “because they are not given the licenses to provide all the services.” “It will be impossible to meet these capacity requirements without the use of fiber optics as a transmission medium,” Movistar stressed in this regard.
Another point questioned by Movistar in the document that it presented in Parliament but which, once again, it raised from the outset, is the question of “the advantages that are conferred on the state operator” in the competitive process, referring to the bloc reserved for Antel.
According to the transnational company, the conditions of the 5G auction “are in violation of the foreign investment protection treaties” signed by Uruguay. “Only ensuring a common launch date for 5G at the industry level could partly offset the competitive advantage that Antel has been given,” the text says.
The other critics of the companies in Parliament
The Claro and Dedicado delegations also had their opportunity to express their complaints before the legislators of the Industry Commission.
On behalf of the Uruguayan company, the CEO appeared, Arturo Vergas, and he put back on the table the express “discrimination” that the conditions to participate in the competitive process to develop 5G technology in the country entail.
At this point, the head of the MIEM, Omar Paganini, had previously explained —in front of the same parliamentary commission— that the decision to include previous experience in the cell phone sector as a requirement was “because it is understood to be extremely reasonable that, for a service of the importance of mobile telephony, whoever acquires the band is not just someone who has the financial capacity to acquire it and then go out and see how the service develops, but to secure it to someone who has the necessary experience and credentials.
The representatives of Claro —who had also filed an administrative appeal dismissed by MIEM— appeared by videoconference, objecting once again to the base price of 28 million dollars for each block set by the government. This issue had also been dealt with by Paganini, who pointed out that the price was the result of a comparative study of values in 27 countries by the Communications Services Regulatory Unit (Ursec). “Some of those interested in participating think that this number is excessive. It is understandable that this happens, but we think that it is the value that it really has, ”said the minister days ago.
Source: Ambito
