KDG welcomes consolidation in cable market
Grupo Salinas, the parent
company of alternative Mexican telecoms
provider Iusacell, is
planning to request that the Secretario de Comunicaciones y Transportes (SCT) revoke concessions for spectrum in the 3.5GHz band held by both Telefonos de Mexico (Telmex) and Nextel. Grupo Salinas, according to El Universal, has claimed that neither Telmex nor Nextel has launched
commercial services using the frequencies as stipulated by the terms of the licences, with Luis Nino de Rivera, a spokesman for the
group cited as saying: ‘The obligation of all licensees is to launch the
service within 180 days after having received the concession, and they [Nextel and Telmex] have been speculating and hoarding a
public good for over five years.’ In response, Telmex spokesman Arturo Elias Ayub
said that his
company was, in fact,
using the assigned spectrum to cover rural regions, while Nextel too has claimed that the spectrum is in use, with the
operator stating that the frequencies are used for elements including
data transmission, access to its
telephone network and the
connection of rural schools. Further, Nextel
said that the Comision Federal de Telecomunicaciones (Cofetel) had made a
number of inspection visits to
ensure the spectrum was being used in line with the terms of the concession, noting that the last visit verifying this to be the case was conducted in mid-2011
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