Pamela Gidi, the head of Chilean sector watchdog the Department of Telecommunications (Subsecretaria de Telecomunicaciones, Subtel), has announced that the regulator is working on rules that will allow operators to sell spectrum concessions, and enable the authority to confiscate unused frequencies. Diario Financiero quotes the Undersecretary of Telecommunications as saying: ‘We are going to promote the secondary market and we are evaluating the bill that established that spectrum can be sold to third parties and even repeal concessions if they are not used.’
As noted by TeleGeography’s GlobalComms Database, the issue has been on the agenda for Chile’s regulatory agencies since 2014 when it emerged that, due to a legal loophole, Subtel could not rescind VTR’s spectrum licences. VTR had switched from providing services as a mobile network operator (MNO) to an MVNO model in late 2013.