ASEP receives approval to negotiate with Gitpan on the sale of Digicel

The government authorized National Administration for Public Services (ASEP) negotiate directly with General Internacional Telecom Panamá, SA (Gitpan), the mobile telephony concession operated by Digicel.

This company was the only one to present itself at the pre-qualification ceremony held at the beginning of this year. Gitpan is owned by General Internacional Telecom El Salvador (Gites). Gites is a subsidiary of the British General International Telecom Limited, which bought Telefónica’s operation in El Salvador for 133 million.

Digicel Group started working in the Republic of Panama in 2008 for the telephone market cell phone, However, on April 6, 2022, it requested its voluntary liquidation before the Civil Court.

ASEP appointed Alex Anel Arroyo as intervener in the case to provide services to clients.

After the announcement of the liquidation, however, it skyrocketed loss of users of this operator.

When the concessions for communication services are awarded, current Digicel customers will automatically switch to this new telephone company.

The concession to be negotiated will be for 20 years. What is being auctioned is radio spectrum, bandwidth, which has fixed prices.

Digicel is allocated 50 megahertz, different bands, which have fixed speeds.

There are 6.4 million mobile subscribers in Panama and 9 out of 10 Panamanians has access to a cell phone.

The telecommunications business generated revenue of $1,116 million in 2022, of which $592 million corresponds to mobile telephony.