At the request of the government, the Federal Institute of Telecommunications (IFT) canceled the bidding process for the radio spectrum for mobile services number 12, which includes susceptible bands for the provision of 5G services.
The authority, which is about to disappear, reported in a statement that on January 2 it received a request from the Digital Transformation and Telecommunications Agency to cancel the tender.
The new entity argued that it would not have elements to continue the bidding under the terms defined by the IFT.
The institute added that from the deadlines provided in the bases that extend until the first quarter of this year, it is likely that the relief of activities for the bidding will correspond to a new authority, once the current regulator has been extinguished. .
For this reason, the IFT decided to cancel the contest, “in order to safeguard the legal and regulatory certainty that must prevail in any bidding procedure.”
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The IFT explained that on December 18 it approved the issuance of the call and the bidding rules, a resolution taken “in strict accordance with the legal framework, in exercise of the powers conferred on this regulatory body and that are in force until such time as its extinction is realized”, as established by the constitutional reform decree of administrative simplification, published on December 20.
The IFT stated that the tender for radio spectrum blocks in bands such as 600 MHz, 2.5 GHz and 800 MHz, as well as the L band, among others, susceptible to 5G services, was foreseen in its Annual Work Programs 2022 to 2024. .
These bands were included in the Annual Programs for the Use and Exploitation of Frequency Bands from 2020 to 2024 to be concessioned for commercial use through public bidding.
He added that as an exercise in transparency and citizen participation, two public consultations were held on the tender, one from January to March 2023, and another from May to July 2024.
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“Likewise, as established by the Federal Telecommunications and Broadcasting Law, the IFT requested a non-binding opinion from the Ministry of Finance and Public Credit, in relation to the minimum reference values proposed for this tender,” he stated.
They wanted to give “a big shout out”: Sheinbaum
On December 26, President Claudia Sheinbaum, without giving more details, declared in her morning conference that the IFT wanted to give “a shout out” because “it gave us a few concessions before closing,” but that her government would back them out.
The next day, the head of the Digital Transformation and Telecommunications Agency, José Antonio Peña Merino, clarified that the president was referring to a bidding process for “more than 2,400 bits and pieces of radio spectrum.”
He argued that from the government’s point of view, the bidding process, if it occurs, should occur with the final configuration that the new telecommunications authority will have.
“It is not consistent with what they call in English due diligence or appropriate diligence that, if there is an institution that is being reconfigured, which among its powers is to grant spectrum concessions, this occurs while it is precisely being modified. This gives legal certainty to both the Mexican State and those who acquire spectrum concessions,” he argued.
He also assured that the tender does not fully comply with some social coverage objectives.
“The position of the president’s government, and one that we obviously share, is that this tender be stopped,” he declared.
“They wanted to make a splash, imagine, bidding for everything that remains of the spectrum. So no, that cannot be allowed, because the decision belongs to the Mexican State,” Sheinbaum stressed.
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