Brazil’s CADE (Conselho Administrativo de Defesa Economica / Administrative Council for Economic Defence) has cleared an amendment to the network sharing arrangement between Vivo and TIM Brasil.
The operators first signed the agreement in 2015 together with Oi, which has since ceased operations and sold off its various business units to its former rivals TIM, Vivo and Claro Brasil. TeleTime reports that the RAN sharing agreement was suspended after Oi Movel was sold to the three operators, with an interim contract installed to ensure that Oi’s customers still received services – including those who moved to Claro, which did not sign up to the agreement.
This temporary contract has now been scrapped, and the original agreement has been updated to reflect Oi’s market exit. When it was signed in 2015, the deal stipulated that the operators would share 4G networks across 706 cities in Brazil – this has been reduced to 349 municipalities across 22 states, on the grounds that Claro will cover the remaining locations outside the terms of the network sharing arrangement.
CommsUpdate notes that the contract is likely to use a Multiple Operation Core Network (MOCN) solution that will allow the operators to share spectrum and active elements of the core network, as well as RAN infrastructure.