Argentina’s sell-off of unused 4G spectrum in the 2600MHz band has raised US$27.7 million for the country’s National Communications Agency ENACOM (Ente Nacional de Comunicaciones).
The sale has been ongoing since May this year, when ENACOM announced that it would reorganise the 2600MHz band so that existing spectrum holdings were made contiguous, allowing them to be used more efficiently.
A statement from the regulator read: “Based on this assignment and reordering of the spectrum, providers Claro, Movistar and Personal will be given the opportunity to equalise their holdings both in total amounts and in amounts assigned in the 2600MHz band. This will increase efficiency in the use of the band, given the new contiguous arrangement of the assigned ranges.”
TeleGeography notes that ENACOM first made the 2600MHz band available via a tender held in May 2017. The process lasted for two months, and resulted in Claro and Movistar each obtaining 2×15MHz FDD blocks, while Personal acquired a 2×20MHz FDD block and one unpaired 20MHz TDD block.