Telecom Giants shell out $1.26 billion in the first day of Brazil's 5G auction

On this Thursday the 4th of November, several units of America Movil, Telefonica, Telecom Italia and  several local firms participated in the first day of the Brazilian 5G auction, spending over a billion  dollars to scoop up valuable spectrum dedicated 5G wireless technology. This action is the largest ever  in Latin America’s top economy and is predicted by the government to require around 40 billion reais  ($7 bln) of investments by the winners. 
In fact, on this first day of the auction, seven companies spent a total of 1.3 billion dollars, one of  which was Claro, owned by Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim. The company was the biggest spender,  paying 1.63 billion reais ($300M) for several batches such as the B1 batch of the 3.5 GHz spectrum1. Spain Telefonica SA, which owns Vivo (Brazil’s most influent wireless carrier), spent roughly 967 million  reais ($170M), winning the B2 batch of the 3.5 GHz spectrum. Telecom Italia, which runs TIM SA, took  the B3 batch of 3.5Ghz for 351 million reais ($63.6M), along with a few other batches, spending a total  of 976 million reais ($177M).  
The auction was delayed by disagreements over the involvement of China’s Huawei Technologies Co  Ltd as a supplier of 5G equipment, which the United States has asked for Brazil’s government to ban  on security grounds. However, the country’s main wireless firms already use Huawei, and thus if a  permanent ban was issued, billions of dollars and additional costs would be passed on to the  customers. Consequently, the Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro decided to create a separate private  network which would exclude Huawei from government and federal agency networks.  
There is no doubt that industry groups are apprehensive for Brazil to catch up on the long awaited  fifth generation technology, as it would optimize effectiveness in fields such as medicine and  agribusinesses. According to Viven Suruagy (head of federation of 137 thousand companies), the  telecom infrastructure sector is bound to receive tremendous amounts of improvements, as Brazil’s  5G network has the capability of generating new business opportunities worth $1 trillion in 15 years  and generate 1.5 million job opportunities by 2025.  
1. Frequencies of range 3.5 GHz are the basis for the first implementations of 5G globally. The spectrum is at a balancing point between coverage  and capacity that provides the perfect environment for the earliest 5G connectivity.

Written by: Henrique Sampaio 
Edited by: Anna Kissajikian