Why Honduras' new spectrum auction flopped

Honduras' recent 1.7-2.1 GHz AWS band spectrum auction flopped, as the country failed to attract the minimum number of participating operators required by law.

On September 1, regulator Conatel declared the process void after only one of the three eligible operators — Claro, Tigo and state-owned Hondutel — submitted qualifying bid documentation.

Under Honduran competition rules, a minimum of two prequalified bidders must participate for the auction to legally proceed. Even though an unnamed operator was ready to buy, Conatel could not legally award the frequencies without an active, multi-party bidding war.

Because this threshold was not met, the auction was canceled entirely. 

Under the tender's structure, three 20MHz blocks in the 1700/2100MHz band were on offer at a floor price of US$8 million (mn) per block, with spectrum accumulation capped at 160MHz per operator.

Only the three concession-holders were eligible to compete — a small pool to begin with.

Furthermore, the spectrum accumulation limits likely curbed bidding flexibility for the market's dominant players.

Honduras' mobile market remains a near-duopoly — Tigo holds about 70.5% share, Claro 29.5% and Hondutel just 0.04% — and Tigo had already unveiled a separate US$1 billion (bn), five-year investment plan in March 2026.

This could have reduced the urgency for either major player to compete for new spectrum under these specific terms.

What is more, Millicom has pursued a broader, more aggressive, M&A-driven spending spree across the region.

Industry groups like the GSMA have previously warned that Honduras suffers from an "artificial scarcity" of spectrum, which inflates prices and dampens regional rollouts.

Panama too

The Honduran failure mirrors a broader trend in Central America, closely following a recent telecom tender in Panama that also failed to attract bidders.

Despite the setback, Conatel said it will redraft the tender rules and relaunch a new AWS-band auction in due course.

(The original version of this content was written in English)