Reuters: Mergers News: Document shows red tape binds Mexico broadband plan

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Document shows red tape binds Mexico broadband plan Mar 30th 2012, 21:29 By Cyntia Barrera MEXICO CITY, March 30 | Fri Mar 30, 2012 5:29pm EDT MEXICO CITY, March 30 (Reuters) - Mexico's communications ministry never asked the financial authority to set a fee that media company MVS was supposed to pay to hold on to a big chunk of the spectrum, a think tank said on Friday, as red tape snarls an ambitious broadband plan. Consumer advisory group Observatel's findings highlight a lack of coordination between government agencies overseeing the future of one of the most ambitious broadband projects in Mexico in decades, a project that could trigger growth in the telecom market. MVS owns 190 Megahertz (MHz) of bandwidth, good to deploy a next-generation LTE (Long Term Evolution) network in Mexico. Analysts have estimated such a capacity is big enough to run three companies the size of America Movil, Mexico's leading cell phone provider owned by tycoon Carlos Slim. MVS's spectrum is the sum of 42 licenses granted by the government but some of them have expired, making it impossible for the company to build a nationwide network unless authorities renew those permits. The communications and transport ministry has already refused to renew the expired licenses and had said it appointed the finance ministry to calculate the fee that MVS would have to pay to claim back the expired licenses and keep the ones that had not come due. "According to the finance ministry, the communications ministry has not requested to set the fee for the ... spectrum," Observatel said. Its information is based on a formal response letter from the finance ministry, a copy of which was provided to Reuters. Earlier this month, MVS said the finance ministry had put a tag of up to 39 billion pesos, or about $3 billion, to let it keep the spectrum, an amount it could not possibly pay. MVS' last offer of $340 million to keep at least 140 MHz of the spectrum for an initial period of 10 years was rejected by the government. MVS and the communications ministry could not immediately comment on Observatel findings. Link this Share this Digg this Email Reprints

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