BUENOS AIRES, Argentina-After a year of successive postponements, the Regulatory Unit of the Uruguayan Communications Services (URSEC) announced that on 18 November, there will be an auction of personal communications services (PCS) and third-generation (3G) licenses at 1800, 1900 and 2100 MHz. With this announcement of a set date for the auction, Uruguay will become the first country in the region to grant licenses for 3G.
The unit will split the frequency bands into lots of 5 megahertz, with an upper limit of 15 megahertz per band. The base value of each lot is US$6 million, which is to ensure that the participating companies are awarded the best flexibility in the use of the spectrum available.
There are currently two cell-phone operators in Uruguay, the state-owned Ancel and Movicom BellSouth, which respectively had 330,000 and 150,700 customers according to 30 June figures. Movicom BellSouth has been granted permission to participate in the auction, in which Telef
