Dominican Republic regulator Indotel has launched a public spectrum tender for provision of mobile telecommunications services two years after it was initially announced.

With this tender, Indotel will grant concessions and licences for the use of  900 MHz, 1700-2100 MHz spectrum radio frequencies bands across the country. The tender winner will be awarded on 21 April.

The Caribbean country has four mobile operators Trilogy,  Orange,  Tricom/Viva  and Claro.  Earlier this week, Indotel announced the approval of the sale of Orange Dominicana to Israeli-owned cable and mobile operator Altice.

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Caribbean operator Digicel has acquired the 700Mhz radio spectrum at half the $45 million price tag that the Jamaican government failed to sell it at last October.

Phillip Paulwell, minister of science, technology, energy and mining, outlined the spectrum block band had been sold for USD25 million.

“In retrospect, it would have been difficult for us to have got as much as we thought there was value in it and even after we were seeking to negotiate, we were way below the USD25 million. People were coming to us at 10. Getting 25 in the end has been quite significant,” the minister told local newspapers.

The government has still only sold one block of 700Mhz spectrum, and still aims to sell the remaining blocks.

America Movil has confirmed that it is filing an objection to a regulatory ruling that declared the company to have a dominant position in the Mexican telecoms market.

Such a declaration was widely expected when it was handed out by the competition regulator, and allows the telecoms regulator to impose regulations designed to support the smaller networks.

The challenge appears to be based on the wording of the declaration, as the regulator chose to treat America Movil, its fixed and mobile subsidiaries Telmex and Telcel, conglomerate Grupo Carso and banking company Grupo Financiero Inbursa as a single holding entity.

America Movil argues that they are separate companies. Even still, with with a 70 percent market share in the mobile market, America Movil may struggle to persuade the regulators that they are mistaken in their ruling, even if the technical method is overturned.

If the ruling is upheld, then America Movil will be subject to a ban on charging national roaming fees, a mandate for infrastructure sharing and tighter regulation of interconnection fees.

Further action could be taken, but not for another two years. One option open to the regulator is to force the company to sell assets, or some of its customer base to its rivals to bring its market share down to below 50 percent.

The new regulator, the Instituto Federal de Telecomunicaciones (IFT) was created last summer as part of the reform of Mexico’s telecom market. The reform granted IFT more powers than the previous telecom regulator had, including antitrust authority. The telecommunications reform is among a wave of measures introduced by Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto that have included overhauls of education and the energy sector.

Colombia’s telecommunications regulator has ordered incumbent operators Claro, Tigo and Movistar to grant Avantel access to and use of the essential facility of National Automatic Roaming.

In a statement, Communications Regulation Commission (CRC) said it will grant them  one calendar month to implement this measure. As a result, Avantel will have coverage for the provision of voice, text messages (SMS) and internet access to users in areas where it has not deployed its 4G network, using the infrastructure of the other three operators.

This measure was taken in response to the requests made by Avantel to the CRC in December 2013, in which it pointed out that it requested access to this service nationwide from Comcel, Tigo and Movistar in late August 2013, but had no response.