The Mexican subsidiaries of AT&T and Movistar (Telefonica) have called on the country’s telecoms regulator IFT to exclude rival Telcel (America Movil) from bidding for all of the 80 MHz of spectrum in the AWS band scheduled to be put up for action in January 2016, reports local daily El Financiero. The IFT is set to award a total of 80 MHz in the AWS band (1,700-2,100 MHz), including 30 MHz in the AWS-1 band and 50 MHz in the AWS-3 band, for the deployment of 4G services. However, AT&T and Movistar said awarding further spectrum to America Movil, which already has a 70 percent market share and is a dominant player, would adversely affect competition in the mobile market. The operators also asked the watchdog to bear the costs of rearranging existing concessions on the AWS band and to lower the price estimates for the blocks.
