“We got to generate competition and to lower the prices of the cellular plans”

Laura Neira Marciales – [email protected]

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The arrival of Novator Partners has caused various controversies in the telecommunications sector due to its error in the auction of the spectrum, and due to the recent Avantel purchase. Still, Chris Bannister, CEO of Novator Partners in Colombia, stated that they will come to generate competition and lower the prices of mobile plans.

What happened at the spectrum auction? What was the mistake?

We had a person from Colombia who had to convert the figure to pesos. As seen in the audio and video records of that day, I put $ 50 million, but he mistakenly added a zero and offered $ 500 million. We only found out later, when someone else alerted us.

How will Avantel’s debts be solved?

We are working hand in hand with the Supersociedades to identify all of Avantel’s debts, to create a business plan and pay them. We took control in mid-June and have been dealing with this to give equal importance to everyone.

Why did they decide to buy Avantel?

We had no choice, we had to build from scratch and that could take a long time. With Avantel we have not only more than 300 people and a business plan, but their experience from day one. However, it has the complexities of your big debt.

When did you notify the authorities about the purchase?

We notified them on June 12 when we completed the purchase, before obtaining the license there was no point in thinking about buying Avantel or Movistar, which has openly said that it is for sale.

Could this purchase take away their starter status?

Before the auction, in November, we asked the ICT Ministry and the CRC if we would continue with the benefits when acquiring a company and they said yes, but with certain conditions. Now we work with them to continue the benefits.

How many antennas do they have and how will the infrastructure be deployed?

Avantel has 1,165 antennas, especially in Bogotá. In the next 12 months we will have to work on connecting the 674 remote localities with which we committed ourselves during the spectrum auction process, so that we will reach almost 1,800 antennas in the next four years.

When will they start offering their services?

We do not want to commit to an exact date, but we hope to launch our commercial proposal in the first half of next year, we hope that it will be at the beginning.

Will they arrive as WOM or will they have a new brand?

In Poland we are called Play, in Iceland we are Nova, and in Chile we are WOM. We are not left with a single brand, our DNA is to identify the culture and values ​​of the company in each country to give it an appropriate name. At the moment, I will not say which one we are looking at, it may be Avantel, it may be WOM, even so we are looking at some more Colombian names.

How much do you expect to invest in the country?

It is a very large country, we invest more than 1,000 million euros in Poland, and we see that this is a similar market, for which we anticipate some US $ 1,000 million.

In addition, we will create 2,000 jobs, an important factor after the pandemic.

With your entry will lower the costs of the plans?

In the last four years there has been no competition in Colombia, so prices have risen too high. The three operators were happy with the market share they had and that has just changed, we got to compete and lower prices for cell phone plans.

How much market share do you want to achieve?

In Poland we are now number one with 27.5% of market, in Chile we are number three and after almost five years we have 20% of market, here our aspiration is to achieve 20% of participation.

We want Colombia to be a country of four competitors, because with a new participant the dynamics change, competition increases and each company must try harder, we will have the users we deserve and they will be the ones who decide whether we are the leaders or not.

Will they bring their fiber optic service?

The next four years we will focus on the development of mobile connectivity, in that time 5G technology will arrive in the country and will give us the necessary speed to compete in fiber optics, a service that we already have in Poland. In Chile we are implementing it and here it will surely be needed with the rise of teleworking.

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