Chile’s regulator Subtel has confirmed that it now plans to auction several 5G frequencies across several rounds of bidding after a stalemate between the initial technical offers received from the country’s major players.
Independent auctions will now be held for the 700MHz, AWS and 3.5GHz bands. As noted by TeleGeography, there is enough spectrum available in the 26GHz band to meet the requested allocations for the three operators that submitted offers – Claro, Entel and WOM – so this frequency will be issued without a bid.
WOM’s interest in the available 700MHz frequencies was matched by Borealnet, which is looking to establish itself as a competitor in the market. Claro will join these two operators in bidding for the AWS spectrum, while all three of these operators will face off against each other as well as Entel and Movistar for the 3.5GHz band.
Subtel is scheduling the auctions based on the size of the available spectrum holdings from smallest to largest. First up is the 700MHz auction, in which a single 2x10MHz block is available, on 8th February. A 2x15MHz block of AWS spectrum will be sold on 11th February, while the available 150MHz of 3.5GHz frequencies will be auctioned on 16th February.