Latin America moves towards region-wide allocation of Digital Dividend spectrum for mobile on a harmonized basis

Brazilian and Chilean decisions add to list of countries that have secured this key spectrum for mobile broadband.

Allocating the 700MHz band, known as the Digital Dividend, for mobile broadband presents a great opportunity to achieve universal access to broadband services in Latin America and, at the same time, bring economic benefits to the region, including higher levels of employment, productivity, competition and GDP. That’s why Latin American telecommunications regulators are choosing to allocate the 700MHz spectrum band to mobile as soon as possible.

On February 7, the Brazilian Ministry of Communications announced its decision to allocate the Digital Dividend to mobile broadband services and Tom Phillips, Chief Government and Regulatory Affairs Officer of the GSMA commented: “The GSMA welcomes the decision by Brazilian Minister of Communications Paulo Bernardo to instruct regulator ANATEL to allocate the 700MHz spectrum band to mobile broadband services. Brazil’s action aligns with the decisions of other Latin American countries on the Digital Dividend, including Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico, Panama and Uruguay.”

Digital Dividend spectrum is a key enabler for universal mobile broadband access, supporting affordable network roll-out and offering a host of socio-economic benefits for urban and rural populations alike, including those living in remote areas where fixed-line penetration is low.

“We now encourage ANATEL to work with Brazilian mobile operators to define the conditions and timing for licensing the spectrum to best advance the development of the country’s wider mobile ecosystem and provide innovative services to consumers. Adoption of a harmonised 700MHz band plan will be essential to generate the economies of scale needed to deliver the full benefits of affordable mobile broadband services to the people of Brazil,” Phillips continued.

Last week, the Chilean regulator SUBTEL published a resolution to allocate the 700MHz spectrum band to mobile broadband services.

“Chile has chosen to adopt the Asia Pacific (APT) band plan for the allocation of the Digital Dividend. The GSMA acknowledges the benefits of regional spectrum harmonisation to create economies of scale which, in turn, will make mobile broadband services more affordable. This will lead to substantial socio-economic benefits for the citizens of Chile,” Phillips said.

According to the study “Economic Benefits of the Digital Dividend for Latin America” commissioned by the GSMA and AHCIET and conducted by Telecom Advisory Services LLC (TAS), allocating Digital Dividend spectrum in the 700 MHz band for the deployment of mobile services could contribute almost US$15 billion to the Latin American economy and will expand Mobile Broadband coverage to nearly 93 per cent of the population.

“The GSMA encourages countries in Latin America to work together to implement a harmonised 700MHz band plan for mobile services. Spectrum harmonisation is essential to generate cost efficiencies in both network technology and devices, allowing deployment to remote areas to ultimately make mobile broadband services more accessible and affordable for all consumers,” added Sebastian Cabello, Director of GSMA Latin America.

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