Avantel

active

Avantel was awarded a concession to operate as a national and international long distance carrier in October 1995. Avantel was one of the eight companies that obtained a concession to operate as a long distance carrier between 1995 and 1996. Such licenses were issued as part of Mexican opening of its telecommunications market. Avantel is a consortium integrated by Grupo Financiero Banamex (55%) and MCI (45%). Avantel's project consisted of building a 20,000 km fiber cable in Mexico to provide its long distance services. The total project cost was estimated as US$ 1,800 million. Avantel developed the first phase between 1995 and 1997 which cost US$ 900 million. Such phase, which was operational since 1996, consisted of a 10,570 km fiber optic cable that connected Mexico City, Guadalajara, and Monterrey with thirty other Mexican cities. The company put on hold its investments by February 1998. The argued reason was a lack of impartial regulation by Comision Federal de Telecomunicaciones (Cofetel), the Mexican regulatory agency for telecommunications. By the beginning of 2001, Avantel had invested a total of US$ 1000 million and developed its network to 6,300 km. It started to provide local telephone services on December 29th, 2000. In 2001, the company undertook an expansion of its network and data center, and launched local telephony service for corporate clients in Mexico City, Guadalajara and Monterrey. By 2002, the company's fiberoptic network was almost 8000 km. As of 2003, the company had appoximately 15 percent of the Mexican market in fixed access and long distance telephony. In December 2006, Axtel, project #999, acquired Avantel for approximately US $516 million and added 38.2 thousand new lines in service. Avantel's assets and expenditures were reflected on Axtel's financial statements for fourth quarter 2006. None In 2005, Avantel had 500000 users.