Chile - Mobile Market - Background Report

Synopsis

Chile’s first mobile telephony concession was awarded in 1981 to Cidcom, a company created with local and US capital, and later acquired by BellSouth. Cidcom first launched services over a UHF band network. It rolled out an AMPS 800 network in 1989, upgrading to TDMA in 1996, and to CDMA in 2003. In 1989, the government auctioned four licences in the 800MHz band. The winners were Cidcom, Compañía de Teléfonos de Chile (CTC), Entel, and Quiñenco’s VTR Celular. In early 1996, VTR Celular and CTC merged, creating a joint venture with nationwide coverage named Startel, which later became Telefónica Móviles Chile, trading as Movistar. In January 2005, Telefónica Móviles Chile absorbed BellSouth Chile; the merged company, relaunched under the brand name Movistar in April 2005, became the market leader, with a clear edge over its main rival and erstwhile number one operator Entel PCS. This report provides background information for the more regularly updated Chile - Mobile Market - Overview, Statistics and Forecasts. As such, it covers details on the history and development of Chile’s mobile market that are absent from the more up-to-date report, but it does not contain a mobile market analysis, forecasts, or statistics.