Brazil is preparing three auctions of wireless airwaves for mobile-phone service in 2012 and is beginning work on a fourth sale to meet the growing demand for data downloads, the nation’s top phone regulator said.
Telefonica Brasil SA (TEF), a unit of Madrid-based Telefonica SA, and billionaire Carlos Slim’s America Movil SAB (AMXL) may participate in the contest for airwaves in the 2.5 gigahertz band used for so-called fourth-generation services, Joao Batista de Rezende said. That sale, along with an auction in the 450 megahertz band for rural coverage, will be in April, said the president of the National Telecommunications Agency, or Anatel.
“The Brazilian market will guarantee return on investment,” Rezende said in a Dec. 2 interview in Brasilia. “From the conversations I’m having, nobody is going to miss out on this kind of spectrum, because that would mean missing out on the fourth generation,” or 4G, which enables faster wireless Internet connections.
Telecom Italia SpA (TIT)’s local unit Tim Participacoes SA (TCSL4), Tele Norte Leste Participacoes SA, NII Holdings Inc. (NIHD) and Vivendi SA (VIV)’s Global Village Telecom Holding SA are likely to bid for 4G airwaves as well, Rezende said.
Anatel is also preparing an auction in the second half of 2012 for the 3.5 gigahertz band, which can be used for several applications including voice, data and video, Rezende said.
“It strengthens the data-transmission infrastructure of the big companies,” Rezende said. “Mobile service is going to need more frequencies in the future.”
232 Million Subscribers
Brazil had 232 million wireless subscribers at the end of October, up 19 percent from a year earlier, according to government statistics. That was the fastest rate of growth since July 2009.
The country had 195 million people as of 2010, according to the World Bank. Some phone users buy subscriptions from multiple carriers to make cheaper calls, and some buy data subscriptions, such as laptop cards, in addition to their phone services.
Subscriptions to high-speed Internet over fixed or mobile lines rose 22 percent to 16 million at the end of the third quarter from a year earlier, according to Anatel.
By the end of 2012, Brazil will have offered 764 megahertz of airwaves to mobile-phone companies. The country will need to reach 980 megahertz by 2015 to keep up with demand, according to estimates from the International Telecommunications Union, a United Nations agency.
Source: Bloomberg