The private telephone companies Digitel and Movistar will soon lead the deployment in Venezuela of the 5G network and the LTE standard, respectively, after winning an auction at the Caracas Stock Exchange held this Thursday in front of representatives of the National Telecommunications Commission (Conatel).
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According to the report by journalist William Peña, Digitel was awarded the spectrum of the 3,500 megahertz (MHz) band by offering about 86.92 million dollars. Movilnet and Cantv, government owned service providers, were left out.
The most notable advantage of this 5G technology is that it supports greater bandwidth, which will translate into higher download speeds, which could exceed 10 gigabits per second (Gbit/s).
Movistar also completed its award of the 2,500 megahertz (MHz) band for a value of 37.00 million dollars, which will help them to deepen the systematization of the LTE (Long Term Evolution) standard of wireless communications to transmit data at high speed for mobile phones and data terminals.
“None of the other operators made any kind of counteroffer, so the schedule and the rules of the auction grant both Digitel and Movistar the spectrum in the 2,500 and 3,500 MHz bands,” explained the journalist.
“The interesting thing is that it is the two private companies that win on this occasion. The public sector did not make any major offers,” he said.
In the context of this technological expansion, it is worth mentioning that Digitel has been singled out in the past for collaborating in digital censorship in Venezuela. There have been reports and complaints by digital rights organizations about the blocking of digital media critical of Nicolás Maduro’s regime, such as the web portal La Patilla, and also of having restricted access to social media platforms, including X (formerly Twitter).
These acts of censorship have contributed to a perception that Digitel, like other internet service providers in Venezuela such as Movistar, has operated under the influence or pressure of Chavismo to restrict freedom of expression and access to free information.
In total, the Venezuelan State will receive some 123 million dollars for the use of both frequencies.
