The Dominican Republic’s telecommunications regulator, Indotel, received two technical and economic offers for the bidding of frequency bands for 5G networks. The bidders are Compañía Dominicana de Telecomunicaciones (Claro) and Altice Dominicana.
Indotel opened the technical bids during the week and on 22 September will announce those qualified to meet the requirements for the economic proposals, which will take place on 11 October. The awarding of the frequencies is scheduled for October 28.
According to the bidding documents, Partner Telecoms (Novator) participated in the process during the consultation phase. However, it did not submit bids, according to information published by Indotel.
The Dominican Republic started in February the deployment of the 698-802MHz and 3,300-3,600MHz bands. These portions of spectrum would allow 5G technology to be deployed throughout the national territory.
“The Dominican Republic has the necessary conditions for the implementation of 5G technology thanks to ongoing investments by service providers,” Claudia García, executive director of the Dominican technology and communications association, Comtec, told BNamericas, who also highlighted that operators have a robust fiber optic infrastructure and all the other necessary elements.
The two bidders in this tender, Claro and Altice, are already operating in the country.
At the end of March, the Dominican Republic had 7.27 million mobile lines with access to data services, of which 4.25 million are in the hands of Claro, 2.65 million correspond to Altice Dominicana and 367,418 to Trilogy (Viva).
According to figures from 5G Americas, the country has 380MHz of radio spectrum assigned, 19.4% of the figure suggested by the International Telecommunications Union 2020 (ITU).
