Although cellular penetration remains low in Peru, the government may license at least one additional operator in 1996.
Peru currently has two cellular operators, Tele 2000 and Compania Peruana de Telefonos, with a combined subscriber base of about 73,000. Tele 2000 is the B-band carrier, which operates in Lima and Callao.
CPT, formerly the state-owned telecommunications operator, is 35 percent owned by Telefonica de Espana. It operates as the A-band carrier for the entire country.
Both companies saw healthy subscriber increases in 1995. Tele 2000, operating since 1990, saw a 52 percent jump in subscribers, from 26,278 at year-end 1994 to 40,000 at year-end 1995. But despite this high growth, cellular penetration in the country stands at 0.33 percent.
Domingo Drago, a spokesman for Tele 2000, said in November that the government will tender a bid for the interior B-band license in April-a concession that would help Tele 2000 fill out its serving area. “Probably we will participate in this,” he said.
There also has been talk of PCS licenses, but nothing is firm yet. “The government is being very slow in this issue,” said Salvador Raggio, vice president for Televan, the value-added services subsidiary of Tele 2000. “We have talked with the [people responsible] several times, but they don’t have a time schedule for this deployment.” PCS will unlikely happen in the short term, Raggio said. Tele 2000 plans to implement calling party pays within the next two to three months.
