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This Thursday is the official launch of Woman in the country, the new operator which he assures will revolutionize the way in which Colombians know the mobile networks.
“Colombia is a great country. We plan to invest about a trillion dollars in the next 4-5 years. Investment in network coverage, technology and customer service ”, he told EL TIEMPO Chris Bannister, director and Colombia of Wom.
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Although the arrival of the new operator to the country has been quite controversial, even since the acquisition of the spectrum in the auction that took place in December 2019, from Woman it ensures that its “objective is that the 50 million Colombians have from where to choose the mobile phone service that they are going to have. That’s the good thing about the fourth operator ”.
In the spectrum auction, the investment fund Novator Partners they made a mistake in one of the offers for a spectrum block, and instead of offering 1.7 billion, they offered 1.7 billion, that is, 1,000 times more. This led the company to resign from this block and they had to pay 42,000 million pesos for the seriousness clause of the offer.
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On the other hand, later controversies were generated over the acquisition of Avantel by the investment fund, in which other operators indicated that negotiations had been carried out before the spectrum auction took place. However, Bannister assured that they notified the relevant entities as soon as they had control of Avantel, which happened on June 12 of this year.
The latest controversy came when it was confirmed that Avantel was using a block of spectrum that Partners won in the auction before the merger between the two companies took place, although again Bannister said that Avantel stopped using its spectrum.
Even with these controversies, the operator will begin to offer services in the country, amid a panorama of the telecommunications sector that, according to figures given to the Ministry of Information Technologies and Communications (Mintic) by operators, Clear It is the mobile service provider that accumulates the most lines in the country. Indeed, it has 31.2 million lines; followed by Movistar, with 15.9 million, and You, with 11.8 million.
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We want you to receive the best experience, coverage and service that only we can offer in all of Colombia every day.
These are, on paper, the three major operators that Colombia has. But there are some others, like Virgin mobile, which accumulates three million lines, and Avantel, which has 2.3 million.
Regarding earnings, according to information from the Mint, Claro received during the first quarter of 2020 376,100 million pesos for voice traffic, while Movistar collected 152,700 million pesos; Tigo, meanwhile, earned 128,700 million, and Avantel, 20,900 million pesos.
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With Claro’s dominance in terms of lines and profits, and two other operators that follow suit, the new operator points out that “Colombians do not have the telecommunications service they deserve, that is what we want to change in the next years”.
The commercial strategy of Woman in Colombia is focused on replicating what it has done in other countries that it has reached as an incoming operator, and is to improve the prices of the plans and offer more to users for less.
Bannister says emphatically: “We will do our part in that, I am sure that the ‘dark side’, as I call the other operators, will have to compete. They act like irritable children, they want attention and they don’t want to share their toys. We will all connect those people. This way we will obtain better connectivity, better reliability and quality ”.
However, since Clear, Carlos Zenteno, president of the company in Colombia, states that Claro’s objective for this new year is to remain the preferred operator for Colombians.
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“In our actions, the customer comes first, the customer second and the customer third. Everyone in Claro is wearing our boots for them. They are the most important and we want them to receive the best experience, coverage and service every day that only we can offer in all of Colombia ”.
Likewise, he points out: “We want them to know that we will continue investing and committed by them, taking them out of the stadium with the best coverage and the best products, postpaid plans, prepaid packages, in-home services, enterprise-level solutions and alliances”.
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They act like irritable children, they want attention and they don’t want to share their toys. We will all connect those people. This way we will obtain better connectivity, better reliability and quality
In a similar vein, from You They assure that they continue working to deploy their infrastructure in the country and connect more Colombians: “Tigo has already activated more than 1,400 antennas in the low-band 700 MHz band – optimal for connectivity in remote places – and more than 3.8 million users mobile phones have had twice the speed, twice the capacity and twice the coverage ”.
According to Tigo, between April and October 1,200 antennas were installed, which represents “A deployment that is twenty times larger than that of other operators that participated in the spectrum auction.” And in just six months they managed to “set up an additional network that almost equals the network of the operator that recently announced its sale.”
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‘Welcome the competition’
The position of the president of Clear Faced with the arrival of the new operator, “competition is welcome.”
Zenteno specified that throughout the more than 20 years of operation in the country and on the continent, the company has been in very competitive markets, such as Colombia: “We know that we have to demand ourselves day by day in innovation processes, network capacity, which results in quality of service, to continue with the preference of our customers. That is why we make all the extensions in coverage and improvements in services ”.
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However, Zenteno states that “any new operator that comes to the market must do so while honoring the applicable laws and regulations. You cannot illegally use spectrum, conceal an acquisition, or leave the country without a spectrum block. Competition promotes investment, improves quality and lowers prices, but you must respect the rules ”.
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The arrival of new operator It is defined by Zenteno as a good dynamic: “The Colombian market is highly competitive and unique in the world, and those who benefit are the users. In Colombia they can choose between 11 mobile service providers to make calls and use data. They freely choose the operator, there is number portability, the terminals are sold with open bands and dual SIM, and the law prohibits permanence clauses ”.
For now, Wom promised to connect, during the remainder of 2020 and next year, 674 remote locations in the country that do not have mobile networks and to apply the experience they have in different countries in this matter, so that the connectivity gap in Colombia decreases and the user benefits.
Complaint for Claro goes to the OECD
Several operators, including Tigo and Virgin Mobile, sent a letter to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) on October 28, in which they ask that a new call be made to the Government, considering “what should take urgent measures regarding the dominance of the Claro operator in the country’s fixed and mobile telecommunications markets ”.
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Among other arguments they use that “59 percent of the total income of the sector is received by Claro ”, that in the last six years it has only invested 15.7 percent of its total income and that it is a winner of government subsidies in the fixed market. They point out that a year ago the OECD’s ‘Going Digital’ report already warned of the high level of concentration of these communication markets.
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JUAN DAVID MORALES
Tecnósfera Newsroom
On twitter: @ juandamo07
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