Colombia to charge Novator Partners for withdrawing bandwidth bid offer

BOGOTA: Colombia has launched a process to charge Novator Partners 42 billion pesos ($12.3 million) after the British company pulled out of a 10 mega hertz (MHz) block it was awarded in the 2,500 Mhz bandwidth spectrum of a December auction.

The Ministry of Information Technology and Communications awarded three companies with bandwidth in the 700 Mhz and 2,500 Mhz spectrums during an auction as part of efforts to improve mobile telephone services and expand internet access.

Novator Partners, a privately held company, wrote to the ministry on Jan. 2 to withdraw from the block within the 2,500 Mhz band and for which it had submitted an offer of 1.74 billion pesos ($511.6 million).