Mexico postpones 2.5 Ghz band tender for 1 year

Mexico will delay bidding for a year on its 2.5 Gigahertz (Ghz) broadcast spectrum, which is ideal for servicing data-hungry devices like tablets and smartphones, a commissioner at the telecommunications regulator said late on Thursday.

The tender was set for the second half of the year but was postponed to coincide with a change in the bidding schedule for a wholesale telecommunications network, Adolfo Cuevas, a commissioner at the Federal Telecommunications Institute (IFT), told local radio.

In 2012, Mexico surprised markets by saying it was reclaiming the 2.5 GHz band from 11 companies, after MVS Communications and other companies failed to develop high-speed networks with the spectrum.

Cuevas said that studies will be conducted in the meantime to define the size of blocks to be assigned, the band's uses, and spectrum caps.

In mid-July, Mexico pushed back the bidding process for the wholesale telecommunications network in the latest upset to a project plagued by delays since its inception.

That project would offer the winner of the bid cheap use of a high quality spectrum in the 700MHz band and a 20-year public-private partnership contract to build a 4G LTE mobile network that operators and virtual network operators could rent.

The venture, initially meant to be launched by 2014, is part of a telecommunications reform aimed at curbing the dominance of tycoon Carlos Slim's America Movil and broaden Mexico's cell phone network and penetration.