Expert Rejects Supreme Court Decision Affects Users' Mobile Phone Services

The Supreme Court accepted the appeal against Entel, Movistar and Claro, to monopolize the radio spectrum in the auction of the 700 MHz band, key to the development of 4G. "The respondents are condemned to have the same amount of radio spectrum acquired in the competition of the band 700," said the decision of the highest court. According to industry sources, the determination could affect the users of these companies, because of possible technical problems that would be caused when migrating customers from one band to another.

However, the telecommunications and academic expert of the Department of Electrical Engineering of the University of Santiago, Dr. Claudio Valencia, is getting rid of the customers of these companies perceive some anomaly in the services that They have already contracted. "From the user's point of view, it should not be so complicated, they can work perfectly in the 2 600 or 700 MHz band, they will have to do this migration, but the users do not see these problems, and companies must meet a clause where they are obliged to provide the service with what they have at their disposal, "he explains

The specialist insists on who will receive the penalty more strongly than the companies since they have already made an investment badociated with the frequency bands that they had. "Consumers buy a smartphone that operates in the four frequency bands badociated with different generations of mobile phones. Therefore, for companies to make the change does not limit the access to the communication of users, "he says.

According to Dr. Valencia, the 700 MHz band gives" robustness "to the Mobile communication, and This allows people who live in inner areas of cities such as Santiago or other metropolitan areas to access data at a higher speed.Therefore, it considers unfair that only three companies have the ability to offer higher speeds. "This is not that it benefits other companies, but that it allows them to enter to be able to provide services

For all of the above, he concludes that the Supreme Court's decision is positive. "It seems to me that the decision reduces the monopoly of these three companies and that if this is done as a kind of withdrawal of these fr equities, more competitors will enter, which benefits users as it decreases the cost of services by introducing more competition, "he summarizes.