Brazil’s telecommunications regulator Anatel approved the terms yesterday for a proposed auction of 700MHz spectrum for 4G mobile services, according to Telegeography.com on July 18, 2014. The terms will be published as soon as the country’s comptroller general, Tribunal de Contas da Uniao (TCU), finalizes the reserve price for the licenses. The auction is now expected to kick off in September.

As reported by CommsUpdate, the ministry finalized the schedule for shutting down analogue TV signals and freeing up the 4G 700MHz band across Brazil this June. The project will begin in April 2016 following a pilot phase, and major cities will see 4G frequencies available in areas representing 60 percent of the population by the end of 2017. The entire country will be covered by November 2018. Usage of the 700MHz range for LTE enables coverage of large areas using fewer antennas, thus offering high-speed mobile broadband services to rural areas at a lower cost.