claude

Interesting news about Panama and Carlos Slim:

Panama will auction two new cellular phone licenses at a minimum price of $36 million each, in a bid to increase competition and encourage lower prices and improved services, the government said on Monday.

Michael Mihalitsianos, the director of National Authority for Public Services, told a news conference the two new contracts will be awarded in March 2008, after a pre-qualification period, which is already under way.

He said around half a dozen companies had expressed interest in the 20-year concessions, including Mexico's America Movil (AMX.N: Quote, Tailor Made Servers, Research) (AMXL.MX: Quote, Tailor Made Servers, Research), Latin America's largest cell-phone company owned by billionaire tycoon Carlos Slim.

Panama to auction cellular licenses by March 2008 | Technology | Reuters

panamapal

That still seems like a lot of money, but it will be good for the consumer to get more options for cell phone service. Thanks for the news!

Nosfer

well, that means that cellphone business could be a hit there... espcially if you could sell phones that are *open* to all networks.

tallman33

Aren't there some cellphone carriers that work all over the world? I thought that was the basis of AT&T's ad campaign.

Nosfer

well there are some phones that work world-wide on any provider... but those that you buy straight from your cellphone network are usually "locked" in their network.