Telecommunications operator Claro, owned by Mexico’s América Móvil, pledged to expand coverage in the Dominican Republic as part of its commitments under the recent 5G tender.
The company signed the first addendum to its concession contract with regulator Indotel to include the 3,300-3,370MHz frequencies awarded in last month’s process, which will allow it to offer 5G services in the country, the regulator said in a statement.
The contract also provides for the reallocation of this spectrum so that Claro can use 100MHz of contiguous spectrum, of which 70MHz it obtained in the last bidding process and 30MHz had been assigned to it previously.
Claro presented the highest economic offer in the spectrum auction with US$37,937 per MHz per year for a total disbursement of US$53.1 million. The bidding process also included investment obligations.
Subsequently, Claro committed to invest more than 7.58 billion pesos (about US$138 million) as part of the renewal of its concession contract for the next 20 years, an amount that includes the economic proposal for the acquisition of spectrum.
The operator also undertook the deployment of a network with maximum download speeds of over 60Mbps for each 10Mhz block assigned in 11 municipalities, corresponding to around 50% of the Dominican population.
These are the municipalities of Santo Domingo East, Santo Domingo de Guzmán, Santiago, Santo Domingo North, San Cristóbal, Santo Domingo West, Los Alcarrizos, Higüey, La Romana, La Vega, and San Pedro de Macorís.
In East, West and North Santo Domingo, the operator has already received the approval of the municipalities to carry out network expansion and fiber optic laying works.
The company expects to receive support from other municipalities to continue expanding and modernizing its infrastructure.
