Peru’s Ministry of Transport and Communications (Ministerio de Transportes y Comunicaciones, MTC) is evaluating plans for the rearrangement of the 3.5GHz band and the auction of spectrum in that band as part of plans to promote the development and take up of 5G services. Vice Minister of Communications Patricia Carreno confirmed at a recent summit on 5G in Latin America and the Caribbean that the MTCis holding technical discussions with sector watchdog the Supervisory Agency for Private Investment in Telecommunications (Organismo Supervisor de Inversion Privada en Telecommuniciones, Osiptel) and the Agency for the Promotion of Private Investment (Agencia de Promocion de la Inversion Privada, ProInversion) regarding the allocation of the airwaves. The minister noted that the government aims to help promote 5G development by making more spectrum available to operators but acknowledged that it was difficult to do so via a competitive tender process without undermining network expansion works. The minister was quoted as saying: ‘It is a challenge for Peru to achieve optimal rearrangement of this band and carry out a competitive tender, in such a way that allows the 5G service to take off and expand for the benefit of the population.’ The official went on: ‘We are working focused on generating incentives for the development of telecommunications services with the objective of closing the digital divide, which, today, prevents more than 85% of population centres from having access to 4G mobile internet.’
As previously reported by CommsUpdate, the MTC recently proposed offering a reduction in licence fees in exchange for investment in rural coverage, whilst in January this year it restarted its efforts to allocate additional 1700MHz and 2300MHz frequencies after suspending the process in February 2022.
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