Uruguay is the latest Latin American country to move forward with LTE. After Colombia announced it had set an LTE auction date for June 26, Uruguay’s Regulatory Unit of Communications Services (URSEC) released that América Móvil’s Claro and Telefónica’s Movistar have paid a total of U.S.$64 million for spectrum awarded in its recent auction.
Movistar took 40 MHz (20 + 20 MHz) in the 1.9 GHz band, while Claro won 20 MHz (10 +10 MHz) in the 1.9 GHz band and 20 MHz (10 + 10 MHz) in the 1.7 to 2.1 GHz portion. Movistar agreed to pay just over U.S.$32 million, while Claro’s winning bids totaled U.S.$30.35 million. The base price of each block was U.S.$7.5 million.
The state-run telecom operator, Antel, did not participate in the process but will pay U.S.$38 million for reserved spectrum. Antel was awarded five slots, one in the 900 MHz band and four in the 1.7 GHz to 2.1GHz.
URSEC announced the auction’s bidding terms and conditions for the bands of 900 MHz, 1.9 GHz and AWS spectrum bands in January.
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The rise of cloud computing in Brazil
The cloud computing market numbers in Brazil are small when compared to global IT spending, but the market is growing rapidly and gaining importance in the information technology market. According to IDC’s latest numbers, Brazilian companies spent 68.4% more on cloud services in 2012 than in 2011, reaching U.S.$257 million this year.
Anderson B. Figueiredo, research and consulting manager at IDC, told members of press that average annual spending growth will be 74.3% over the next three years (2013, 2014 and 2015). Looking at individual fields, infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) will grow at an average rate of 71.3%, while platform-as-a-service (PaaS) will grow at 58%, and software-as-a-service (SaaS) will grow at 81.2%.
By 2015, IDC forecasts that Brazil’s cloud computing market will reach U.S.$798 million. Figueiredo noted that Brazil accounts for more than 50% of the total Latin American market, and that Brazil and Chile will drive cloud adoption in the region.
More Latin American news:
- Samsung said that the Galaxy S4 will be produced in Brazil and will be launched in the country by late April. However, as with many other mobile devices, the Galaxy S4 is expected to cost more than the average price of top line appliances. Roberto Soboll, director of mobile products and services from Samsung, told Ztop that Brazil will follow the Galaxy S4 global launch, with the device hitting stores and operators on April 26.
- The French company Vivendi said that it has suspended the sale of the Brazilian telecom operator GVT. The company was expecting to sell the Brazilian unit for about €7 billion (about U.S.$9.02 billion), but there were no buyers willing to pay this amount.
- The obligations related to Brazil’s auction the 2.5 GHz band, designed for LTE services, are expected to generate approximately U.S.$431 million (R$850 million) in research and development investment, the National Telecommunications Agency (Anatel) told the local media outlet Convergência Digital. Anatel president, João Rezende, also told Convergência Digital that the agency will vote on regulations in the coming days to determine how it will oversee compliance with these obligations.