By Vaughan O’Grady
Mexico’s regulator, the Federal Telecommunications Institute (IFT), has announced the launch of a public consultation. It wants to receive comments from industry players and stakeholders about the next spectrum tender in Mexico, which could involve auctioning more than 330MHz nationwide.
This new tender will be relevant to the deployment of next-generation networks such as 5G and, it is hoped, the numerous smart applications, low-latency services, remote services, VR, AR, industry automation and more that 5G can offer.
The (potential) 330MHz of spectrum involved in the proposed tender is likely to be made up of 90MHz in the low bands and at least 240MHz in the medium bands. The tender will mainly include the 600MHz band (of which 70MHz will be available), 3.3GHz (50MHz on offer) and L-band (90MHz from 1427 to 1518MHz). The 600MHz band spectrum in particular, which has been freed up after being used mainly for television services, could be a useful part of 5G deployment, offering more coverage at a lower cost.
As well as these bands, the IFT also plans to include other segments of spectrum, composed mainly of bands that had already been assigned in Mexico, but that were left over or did not receive bids during past bidding processes, including the 2.5GHz band, AWS, 800MHz, 850MHz and PCS.
Given the number and diversity of frequency bands available, the IFT wants recommendations, opinions and proposals from as many interested parties as possible. Hence the consultation process, which is now under way; submissions are open until 3 February 2023.
