Copying and distributing are prohibited without permission of the publisher
Mexico seeks $66m in fibre optic auction
27 January 2010
The Mexican state electricity utility is to sell off spare fibre capacity on its grid to competitive telecoms operators in the market
Read more:
Mexico
CFE
Iusacell
Televisa
Telefónica
Telmex
Comment: The Mexican market is changing. On the one hand, the dominant fixed and mobile operators, both controlled by Carlos Slim, are planning to merge. On the other, the government is trying to introduce more competition into the market, and this move should help.
Mexico is auctioning fibre optic capacity of the state power utility, Comisión Federal de Electricidad. The government is tendering three routes of dark fibre for 20 years, for a sum of $66.4 million.
The current auction is the first for CFE and includes two cables covering about 20,000 kilometres. The additional capacity of dark fibre will help expand broadband Internet access, which currently reaches only 9% of the population.
Televisa, the world’s largest Spanish-language broadcaster, and Grupo Iusacell, Mexico’s third-biggest wireless carrier, are among companies interested in the bidding process.
Winners of the auction are expected to be announced June 9 2010, and the fibre network will be operational within 18 months. The move will help smaller carriers in the Mexican telecommunications market that do not have a national network to compete against the country’s largest fixed-line operator. Grupo Televisa and Telefónica currently rent capacity on the Telmex network. GTB