The Secretary of Communications in Argentina announced concrete plans to award two personal communications services licenses in early to mid-1997.
Initially, the two PCS licenses will be granted for 30 megahertz, with an option for an additional 5 megahertz, but a total of 120 megahertz has been reserved for PCS, reported the U.S. Embassy in Buenos Aires.
The remaining 50 megahertz eventually will be distributed among the two PCS operators and Argentina’s two cellular operators, Mobicom and Miniphone. Currently, the cellular operators each hold 25 megahertz of spectrum.
The Argentina government plans to release a bidding and specifications package once interconnection agreements are completed. Those agreements are expected early this year.
The package will cost about $35,000 and requires interested parties to reply within 90 days. Criteria for awarding licenses includes company background and experience and economic proposals, which include the amount an operator is willing to pay, method of payment and how long it will take to pay for the license.
Argentina specified it will follow three principals in introducing PCS. The government wants to ensure participation of new operators and new investors, avoid concentrating spectrum among just a few companies and avoid obstacles to competition.
The winner of the first PCS license can choose the technology it intends to deploy. That technology will be established as the standard for PCS, which the second and any subsequent operators must also use, said the government.
Initially, the two PCS licensees will be entitled to operate in an interior area of the country centered around Buenos Aires, covering 12 million people in a span of more than 62 square miles.
Wired phone lines number about one for every seven people in Argentina. The population is approximately 32.3 million.
In a meeting last month called by the Secretary of Communications to discuss an upcoming PCS tender, a representative from the following companies were invited to attend: AirTouch Communications Inc., AT&T Corp., Benito Roggio, L.M. Ericsson, Grupo Bemberg Clarin, Impsat, Itochu Corp., NEC Corp., Nokia Corp., Qualcomm Inc., Siemens AG, Tele-Communications Inc., Telia AG, U S West Inc., The Washington Post and VCC.
Movicom is owned in part by BellSouth Corp. and Motorola Inc. Miniphone is a venture of Telecom Argentina and Telefonica de Argentina.
