Living in Peru : your everyday companion

(LIP-ir) -- After beating Telmex Peru and the STM-Valtron consortium for a 450MHz fixed wireless license, Mobile telecommunications provider, Movistar Peru has won its second concession in the past few weeks.

Peru's private investment promotion agency, ProInversión, announced that Movistar, Telefonica's mobile telephony operator, won the license to provide fixed wireless service on the 450MHz spectrum band and deploy 501,000 new wireless phone lines in Lima and Callao.

Scoring 80 points in the auction, Telmex was unable to make a better offer than Movistar, which beat its competitor with 119 points. Even though Telmex offered lower monthly rates for its monthly service (29.50 soles), installation fees were over 130 soles.

Telefonica offered 30-sol monthly rates and installation fees were also 30 soles. In addition, Telefonica offered a network that could support 501,000 lines and be set up in three months while Telmex offered a network that could support 500,001 lines and be established in six months.

STM-Valtron consortium had been prequalified but was not present at the bidding process.

"Telefonica is going to make an investment close to $50 million, which will benefit 2.5 million people in Lima and Callao", said Peru's Minster of Communication, Verónica Zavala.

On December 28, Telefonica won a concession to provide fixed wireless services on the 900MHz spectrum band. The other prequalified operator in the bidding process was Claro, the local unit of Mexico's América Móvil.