On October 4, Argentina’s National Communications Agency (Enacom), currently under government intervention, approved the application for a license to provide mobile services filed by DirecTV, a telecommunications company owned by Grupo Werthein. The company has been authorized to provide mobile telephone and Internet services as a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO), given that it lacks spectrum to deploy its own mobile network. It will have to use the infrastructure of one of the three operators having a network of their own: Movistar (Telefónica), Personal (Telecom Argentina) and Claro (América Móvil).

The news was published in Argentina’s federal register. So far, DirecTV has not made any information related to the granting of the license publicly available.

With regard to the MVNO status, the resolution reads the following: “This registration does not imply that the federal government is under any obligation to guarantee the availability of radioelectric spectrum frequencies for the provision of the services.”

In Argentina, there is only one active MVNO at present: Imowi, owned by the Telecommunications Cooperatives Chamber (Catel). It is worth mentioning that Telecentro has also been granted a mobile virtual network operator license, though it has not started to provide MVNO services yet.