Brazil 5G auction close at $8.5 billion in bids
Brazilian regulator, Anatel, closed its bidding in the country’s multi-band 5G spectrum auction, reaching a total of $ 8.5 billion in bids, with the 3.5GHz concessions attracting the highest bids – a total of $ 3.96 billion for national permits and $ 1.42 billion for regional permits.
In addition, the 2.3GHz band brought in $ 1.70 billion, with the 700MHz band generating $ 0.64 billion and the 26GHz band raising BRL3.45 billion.
The expectations of the long-awaited auction which Brazil’s government had scheduled for November 4, was to raise around $ 1.87 billion, based on the minimum bids allowed.
On his side, President of the Special Bidding Commission Abraao Balbino e Silva highlighted the importance of 5G spectrum to Latin America, saying: “We never had an auction with such economic volume involved: privatization did not yield that, 3G did not yield that, 4G did not yield that.”
He stressed that of the total bids, around $1.34 billion would be converted to goodwill bonds, with the winning bidders required to supply network coverage to pre-selected underserved regions in Brazil.
The major spenders are Brazil’s three biggest players Claro Brasil, Telefonica Brasil (Vivo) and TIM Brasil, however, regional telcos – including Algar Telecom, Brisanet and Sercomtel – also lodged significant bids to obtain licences. Also, Winity Telecom was a major winner in the 700MHz band.
In addition, Brazil will be considered the first Latin American country to deploy 5G, according to a statement by the Brazil Communications Minister Fábio Faria, whilst several other countries already have started installing some 5G networks.
The plan is to cover more than 31,000 kilometers (nearly 20,000 miles) of federal highways with 5G coverage and provide it to public schools, as nearly 7,000 of the country’s 85,000 schools do not have internet, Faria noted.
It is worth noting that there were almost 174 million mobile phone subscriptions in Brazil using 4G technology at the end of 2020, according to Statista.
“This is 13 percent more than the 153.74 million 4G connections recorded a year earlier in the South American country,” it concluded.