The Mexican government has announced that it will not renew the licenses held by companies in the 2.5Ghz spectrum band and plans to recall the spectrum when the licenses expire.

The most significantly affected company will be MVS Comunicaciones which has 190Mhz of spectrum in the affected block. MVS holds 42 of the available 68 concessions in the spectrum band, with the rest allocated to 11 other companies.

Last year, MVS Comunicaciones announced plans for a US$1 billion investment in a 4G mobile network as part of a consortium of companies, including US WiMAX operator, Clearwire and chipmaker, Intel. The company later abandoned the plans, citing a poor regulatory regime in the country.

MVS had offered US$500 million to renew its licenses, but the government had asked for US$1.2 billion, and that was for two-thirds of its holdings. Talks have seemingly broken down and now the government will push ahead with the recall of the spectrum.

Communications and transport (SCT) minister Dionisio Perez-Jacome said that the spectrum would be recovered as just 200,000 customers would be affected and it can be resold for use by LTE services.

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