Mexico. The Plenary of the Federal Institute of Telecommunications, IFT, approved and issued the call and the bases of public tender to concession the use, exploitation and commercial exploitation of 80 MHz of spectrum in the bands 1.7/2.1 GHz, known as AWS spectrum. These frequencies will allow the deployment of 4G and LTE (Long Term Evolution) technologies, which will be useful to provide mobile services in the country.
In issuing these final documents, the opinion of the industry and other stakeholders in the process was taken into account. From September 21 to October 16, 2015, the Draft Bases for the Public Tender of 80 MHz of Radio Spectrum Available in band 1710-1780/2110-2180 MHz (Tender No. IFT-3, Draft Bases).
From the manifestations and proposals made, the Institute was able to identify opportunities for precision and improvement, managing to clarify and strengthen the content of the Draft Bidding Bases No. IFT-3. In this way, modifications and adaptations were made to the project in terms of spectrum limits, minimum reference values, format of the letter of credit that will be used as a Guarantee of Seriousness, rules of activity in the auction, among others.
The tender format will be a Combinatorial Clock Auction (CCA), which has been used for 4G spectrum tenders in countries such as Australia, Canada, Denmark, Ireland, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, and allows bidding for spectrum block packages; the format also allows to determine the winners according to a general maximization of the bids presented, unlike other schemes in which the highest positions are considered as winners.
The bidding process also contemplates the reordering of the entire AWS band, so that all spectrum holders in that band have the largest amount of contiguous spectrum. This will make it possible to maximize the efficiency in the use of this spectrum and, consequently, to offer better services to the end users of mobile services in the country.
After this tender, it will be possible to increase the amount of radio spectrum available for International Mobile Telecommunications (IMT) services by 33%, from 244 MHz on average today to 324 MHz, if all the spectrum to be tendered is allocated.
The publication of the rules and the call will be available on the Institute's internet portal simultaneously with the publication of the call in the Official Gazette of the Federation in the coming days.
