British Virgin Islands suspends 700MHz auction indefinitely

CORRECTION: This story was updated on Monday, February 22 to reflect the fact that the tender process for the 700MHz spectrum was due to be carried out through a competitive evaluation of operators and not an auction.

The British Virgin Islands Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (TRC) has suspended the tender for the 700MHz band that would ensure the local deployment of LTE networks.

According to a brief statement from TRC dated January 21: "The granting of spectrum has been suspended until further notice by the Commission." The document was signed by the regulator's CEO, Guy Malone.

This is the second time that the tender process, due to be carried out through a competitive evaluation, has been suspended after local operator CCTlast year accused TRC of being biased against the company, having asked CCT to relinquish 25% of the spectrum it held in order to register for the auction.

The court finally ruled in favor of CCT in January when it ordered TRC to allow the operator to participate in the race and desist from forcing it to return frequencies.

TRC also aims to call tenders for the 450MHz, 1900MHz, 1700MHz/2,100MHz and 2,500MHz bands during the first half of 2016, which seems an ambitious goal when considering these setbacks.