Behind the Scenes with CAP & COFETEL, take 1

With Mexico’s Auctions 20+21 closed and the winners revealed, I thought it would be interesting to share some behind the scenes details of delivering Mexico’s auction solution.  Between the summer of 2009 and spring of 2010, the Computech and COFETEL international partnership relied on taking turns traveling between Washington D.C. and la ciudad de Mexico.  Over the next series of entries, I’ll be walking you through various aspects of supporting the auction lifecycle.  On tap today – spectrum caps.

In June (’09), COFETEL’s auctions stakeholders & subject matter experts spent a week in our Bethesda offices discussing the intricacies that Auctions 20+21 had in store.  Together, we compared and contrasted U.S. & Mexico spectrum policies to hash out system requirements.  Soon thereafter, our team crossed the border with an initial set of system requirements and wireframes to present to our COFETEL partners.  Much of this trip revolved around spectrum caps – logic, levels, and logistics.

One key element of incorporating spectrum caps into CAP (our auction platform), related to the concurrent nature of Auctions 20 + 21 (i.e. the auctions were run in a parallel fashion by alternating rounds).  Therefore, in order to handle spectrum caps that comprised both auctions, we implemented spectrum caps at an auction-level as well as a region-level. In this way, the system tracked a company’s MHz holdings within a distinct auction (i.e. bidding in 20 or 21), as well as across both auctions (i.e. bidding in 20 and 21).

Based on spectrum cap levels set by Mexico’s Federal Competition Commission (COFECO), CAP effectively restricted bidding by notifying bidders in real-time in the case of ineligible bids due to these caps.  Additionally, CAP provided a Spectrum Cap Report, which disclosed bidder-specific spectrum information by geographic region (1-9 for Mexico).  End result?  The Nextel-Televisa consortium entered the nationwide market with a winning bid on a 30 MHz block of spectrum, and spectrum caps effectively introduced (or limited, depending on your perspective) competition into the nationwide market for Mexico.  I know cases can be made for the +’s & -‘s of each side, but I’ll save that debate for another day.

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Sarah Miller is a member of  Computech’s Auction Practice.  She specializes in auction system design and implementation and is the lead Business Analyst for the Computech Auction Platform (CAP).


Posted on Wednesday, August 25th, 2010 at 6:05 pm and is filed under News, Online Auctions, spectrum management.

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DC Beautification Day

For the third year in a row Computech participated in DC Beautification Day.  This is an opportunity for thousands of volunteers to assist the DC schools in their final preparations before the start of the new school year. At 8:00 Saturday morning, August 21, twenty-one hardy cleaner uppers arrived at Malcolm X Elementary School in Anacostia with shovels, pruning shears, trowels, hedge clippers, and paint brushes ready to take on their assignments.  This year Computech had the pleasure of teaming with staff from the DC Mayor’s Office of Volunteerism for the event.  We even worked alongside a local celebrity – Miss Teen DC!

The day was a very humid 90+ degrees, but the weather did not deter us from our tasks. The site supervisor separated us into groups who focused on painting trim in the main entrance and the front hallway, planting flowers and trimming bushes, and picking up trash (and, boy, was there a lot of that!).  We spent the next five hours diligently working on our assignments, with the occasional break to admire praying mantis, chat with passersby and each other, and gulp down water to stay hydrated. By the time we finished, the painters were splattered in bright yellow and red paint, the gardeners were covered in dirt, and the trash picker-uppers had sore backs, but our hard work was quite evident.  No one managed to fall off any ladders, cut themselves on the shards of glass and crab shells, or get paint in their eyes.

Just to add to the success of the day, we watched the painting of a beautiful mural (wish we had been able to see the finished product, but what we saw was fabulous) and wound up on video that was shown on the 6:00PM news that evening on Channel 4.  Principal Darwin Bobbitt was very grateful for all our hard work.

All in all, it was a great day.  As with other Computech Cares events, it is a wonderful experience to see people give up their personal time to give back to the community.  Check out some great pics on our Facebook page!


Posted on Wednesday, August 25th, 2010 at 5:33 pm and is filed under Computech Cares.

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COFETEL’s Results are in for Auctions 20 & 21

The results are in…COFETEL released the names of the winning bidders for Auctions 20 & 21 (run on Computech’s Auction Platform, CAP) yesterday.  Each auction engaged 3 companies as the major winners.  Pegaso Comunicaciones y Sistemas secured the majority of licenses in each of the 8 regions auctioned in the 1.9 GHz band, accounting for 96% of the revenue generated in this auction.  Grupo de Inversionistas Nextel Televisa and Telecomunicaciones del Golfo split the remaining licenses in the 1.9 GHz band.

With an enduring Round 1 bid in the 1.7 GHz band, Grupo de Inversionistas Nextel Televisa secured one of the two nationwide 30 MHz blocks offered, expanding Mexico’s nationwide coverage.  Also in the 1.7 GHz auction, Radiomóvil Dipsa generated 72% of the revenue with winning bids in all 9 regions, and Pegaso secured 6 additional F block licenses.   Check out the full set of results for Auction 20 and Auction 21 on COFETEL’s website.


Posted on Friday, August 20th, 2010 at 1:02 pm and is filed under Online Auctions, spectrum management.

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COFETEL’s Auctions 20 & 21

Browsing BroadbandBreakfast.com this morning, I came across a posting about Mexico’s recent Spectrum Auctions (Auctions 20 & 21) hosted by the Comisión Federal De Telecomunicaciones (COFETEL). This post prompted me to reminisce about my time spent at COFETEL in Mexico City supporting the auction process with my Computech teammates. It is hard to believe it has been exactly 1 month since Auction 20 & Auction 21 both officially closed, and closed with great success. COFETEL has yet to release the final auction results to announce winning bidders, but the preliminary revenue numbers are booming.

Auction 20 closed in Round 77 (28 days worth of bidding) with all 24 licenses selling, generating nearly $3 Billion pesos ($2,977,265,000 pesos ≈ $230 Million USD). COFETEL subsequently closed Auction 21 after 86 rounds and 30 days of bidding, with 28 of 29 licenses selling. One of two nationwide licenses sold, and the winning bid was one that lived from Round 1 for $180,300,000 pesos. Auction 21 alone generated over $5 Billion pesos ($5,248,049,000 pesos ≈ $413 Million USD). Together, Auctions 20 & 21 revenues tallied $8.2 Billion pesos for the Mexican government, nearly $6.5 Million USD.

I am proud to look back on the last year as a series of successes for both COFETEL & Computech. The past year represents several weeks of journeying between D.C. & Mexico City, trips on which the Computech team lead system demonstrations & training sessions for both internal system users as well as auction participants. Our team also created the presentation that COFETEL delivered in a press conference regarding auction design and rules, at the bidding seminar for the spectrum industry and auction participants, as well as in their internal presentation to the Commissioners and Chairman of COFETEL. We could not be more pleased that our Computech Auction Platform (CAP) supported COFETEL through this process and in the end facilitated two profitable and efficient auctions.


Posted on Friday, August 20th, 2010 at 9:46 am and is filed under News, Online Auctions, spectrum management.

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Come one, Come all (take 2)

Last October, we welcomed the world to Concomitantly. Designed to reflect our corporate culture, we’ve noticed the flavor of our writing trends towards the technical.  Over the past eleven months, we’ve used our blog as a virtual bulletin board to broach new ideas (e.g. on spectrum management) and share our approach to business challenges (e.g. modernizing legacy systems).

Along the way, we’ve shared stories, laughs and pictures of the great staff that makes Computech the IT firm so many know + respect.

So in the spirit of sharing a little more about the types of people that work here, a Wednesday morning link to three blogs penned by our staff.

Our marketing manager Lauren Modeen writes the ever-entertaining Exhilauren’s Marketing Musings. Check out her latest entry on How to Survive the Idea Project Plateau (inspired by the99percent).

Vice President Al Dominick authors DCSpring21; his most recent post, A Dizzying Pace of Change, touches on Big Data, mobile broadband, the promise of distributed collaboration and the opportunity to “test + learn.”

But we’re not all business all the time.  If you’re into knitting, food + fun in D.C., one of our project coordinators, Jennifer Kirschbaum, writes a blog that is a must read.

While just a few examples, we’re happy to share.  Let us know what you think of each — and what you’d like to see more of on Concomitantly in the upcoming weeks and months.


Posted on Wednesday, August 11th, 2010 at 12:31 pm and is filed under News.

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