Chile’s final tiebreaker auction for 5G spectrum has seen Entel, Movistar and WOM emerge victorious.
The country’s regulator Subtel (Subsecretaria de Telecomunicaciones) confirmed that each of the three operators secured a 50MHz holding of spectrum in the 3500MHz band. Movistar’s economic offer of CLP117 billion (US$162.7 million) was the highest, followed by Entel (CLP100 billion) and WOM (CLP32 billion)
According to CommsUpdate, the winning bidders are bound by the terms of their licences to deliver high speed mobile data offerings to 366 locations that currently receive little or no service. Additionally, they will be required to connect 199 hospitals to their new networks.
Claro’s economic offer was too small to procure a tranche of spectrum, while would-be newcomer Borealnet opted out of bidding after losing the AWS and 700MHz tiebreaker auctions to WOM.
In a statement, Claro said: “The results of this first phase of the 3500MHz spectrum tender do not stop Claro Chile’s 5G deployment plans. We will continue advancing in the development of 5G with our currently available spectrum, including the 26GHz millimetre band.”
Local news outlet Diario Financiero notes that Claro may imminently be able to acquire 3500MHz spectrum from Entel, as the latter’s win takes its total holding in the band past the cap of 30%.
