Brazilian 700MHz licensee Winity Telecom has returned its concession to the National Telecommunications Agency (Agencia Nacional de Telecomunicacoes, Anatel), blaming regulatory measures applied by the watchdog. In an announcement dated 22 December Winity stated: ‘From Winity’s perspective, the signing of long-term contracts for the use of infrastructure is an essential condition to enable a sustainable business model that allows, on the one hand, to face the billion dollar investments necessary to fulfil the coverage obligations of 55,000km of highways and 625 remote locations and, on the other, serve new operators and other agents in the sector.’ On the same day Telefonica Brasil (Vivo) – which negotiated a network sharing agreement with Winity back in August 2022 – announced that the pact has now been terminated.

TeleGeography notes that Winity, a holding company backed by alternative asset management firm Patria Investimentos, successfully bid on a national 2×10MHz 700MHz licence in Brazil’s November 2021 5G spectrum auction, committing to pay BRL1.428 billion – the highest bid for a single spectrum lot in the auction. The company was due to pay the next BRL74 million (USD15 million) instalment of its licence fee on 26 December, and was obliged to cover 250 unserved locations by 31 December.