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.

(LIP-ir) -- From January to October of this year there have been 5,193 cases of people stealing telephone cables, affecting over seven hundred thousand users across Peru, said the telephone service provider, Telefonica del Peru (TdP).

In a press release issued by Telefonica del Peru, the company states that the district of Yarinacoha, located in Pucallpa - Peru's jungle, is the district with the most cases of telephone wire theft.

It was reported that telephone wire theft had increased from 8 to 91 robberies in the past year, a 91 percent increase in the area.

Districts in Lima, Peru have also shown a steady increase in telephone wire theft, Barrios Altos being one of the areas most affected. It was reported that five services were affected in February but that by November 130 had been affected.

Large holes, several meters long, can be seen along the streets and sidewalks, where telephone cables have been dug up and stolen, affecting several areas in the district, stated a spokesperson for Telefonica.

It was reported that a 92 percent increase in telephone wire theft was seen in Huaral while Sayán had a 73 percent increase. There have been increases in telephone wire theft across the country, in areas such as Junin, Iquitos, San Martín de Porres and Rimac.

There have been 21 thousand reports of telephone wire theft over the past three years, accounting for the sale of over 1,600 tons of copper on the black market, informed Telefonica del Peru.

(LIP-ir) -- It was announced today that beginning in 2010, cellular phone users in Peru would have the right to mobile number portability, which allows cellular phone users to keep their mobile telephone numbers when changing from one mobile network operator to another.

In a supreme decree, Peru's Ministry of Transportation and Communication (MTC) announced that mobile network operators in Peru would be obligated to provide users with full mobile number portability.

Peru's MTC also established that users who wished to retain their mobile phone number when changing from one operator to another would not be charged for the service, stating that mobile number portability was a right users were entitled to.

The norm approves the "conditions for the implementation of number portability in the country's mobile services" and is an important step in guaranteeing that it will effectively enter into force in 2010, said Peru's Ministry of Transportation and Communication.

It was also announced that it was necessary to create an agency to penalize operators that did not comply and to make sure that users' requests, to retain mobile phone numbers, were not ignored.

Allowing full mobile number portability free of charge is a way of creating more competition between mobile network operators, said Peru's MTC.

(LIP-ir) -- Peru's largest cellular phone service provider and a member of the Telefonica family, Movistar Peru recently released an inappropriate sexual game, reported ACI Prensa.

ACI Prensa, a Catholic news agency reported that the game promoted improper sexual conduct and was available to all of Movistar's users without screening for age.

Women in obscene poses, couples in disgusting positions, a man that purchases pornography and homosexuals touching each other are some of the characters in Movistar's new game called "Encuéntrame" (Find me), wrote ACI Prensa in an article posted on its Web site.

It was explained that the game consisted of finding the characters in a picture-advertisement which was given to the cellular phone company's users.

Cell phone users sent a text message to the company, for a fee, and in turn the company sent the person a clue to help him/her find the character.

Finding characters accumulates points and the user with the most points is entered into a raffle for prizes. ACI labeled the picture-advertisement as controversial and reported that it had been sent to the homes of Movistar users.