QCOSTARICA – Costa Rica’s telecommunications regulator Sutel launched a tender for frequency bands below 470MHz for narrowband radio communication services.
Launched last week, the tender was requested in January by the science, technology and telecommunications ministry (Micitt).
The 15-year concessions are extendable to up to 25 years.
Sutel will assign up to 168 pairs of frequencies with a channel width of 12.5kHz in digital modulation, grouped into spectrum packs of four frequency pairs.
Costa Rica has 23 frequency packages available in the 138-174MHz band and 11 in the 422-450 MHz band. In addition, frequencies in both bands will be offered with regional coverage.
Winners must deploy the infrastructure within 12 months after awarding. Interested companies may present offers until August 9. More information can be seen here, in Spanish.
The narrow band is used for private networks, fixed and mobile radio communication, and coordination of vehicles that a part of a fleet, among others.
It is used in sectors such as agriculture, industry, transport, tourism, security, cleaning, commerce and education.
This tender will allow operators to develop tower infrastructure, repeaters, radios and equipment to provide the service to companies that do not have the resources to develop their own networks, according to Sutel.
Costa Rica is also analyzing a 5G spectrum tender but cannot proceed until Grupo ICE’s frequency recovery process is resolved.