Costa Rica's Wireless
Auction Delayed
The opening of Costa Rica's wireless
telecommunications sector suffers another
dealy, this time to allow for an inquiry
into a possible conflict of interest
involving Irish operator Digicel, with
operationsin Central America, the Caribbean
and Oceania.
The Costa Rican telecom regulator, the
Superintendencia de Telecomunicaciones (Sutel)
said that the mobile spectrum auction for
frequencies in the 850MHz, 1800MHz and
2100MHz bands will be late because of a
possible conflict involving a local legal
firm that has been working with the
regulator as well one of the companies
interested in the tender process.
Sutel president, George Miley, confirmed
that local legal firm BLP was hired by US
consultancy TGM, which at the same time
advised the regulator in drawing up the
bidding rules, but had previously worked
with Digicel.
Digicel, with mobile services in 26
countries and territories in the Caribbean
and Central America, is one of the operators
vying to enter the Costa Rica wireless
market.
that is planning to participate in the
auction, when the company was registering
its brand in the country several years ago.
Miley said that the operator is under no
legal obligation to stop the auction, but it
felt that it would be in the best interests
of transparency to call a halt while the
attorney-general and comptroller carry out
their probe.
It had been expected that the Sutel would be
announcing by April its decision for three
operators to compete with the state telecom,
the Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad
(ICE).
However, the inquiry will delay the process
for up to six months, pushing back the
timetable to award licenses to operators by
September 2010.
Technically that monopoly held by ICE for
decades was broken on 1 January 2009 when
Costa Rica joined Central America Free Trade
Agreement (CAFTA), one of the premises of
which is to allow competition in the mobile
space.
However, ICE continues to remain the sole
provider of wireless telecommunications in
Costa Rica and there will be no competition
until the licensing process takes place.
In addition to Digicel, operators like
America Movil and Telefonica, Cable &
Wireless and Millicom are also said to be
interested in the bidding.
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