The Swedish Post and Telecom Agency (PTS) has awarded Computech a place on its framework agreement to provide consulting services to support their spectrum auctions.  The competition to provide either simultaneous multi-round (SMR) or Clock auctions drew global interest; we’re pleased to announce Computech is the sole North American firm qualified by PTS to support either style of spectrum auction.

Three months after we visited COFETEL to present the initial wireframes, COFETEL stakeholders & subject matter experts (SME’s) traveled to our headquarters in Bethesda, MD to participate in “Integrated System Testing” sessions with our auctions team.  Over the course of a week, we ran several simulated auction scenarios from start to close.  This testing trip served multiple purposes:

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1. We established a common understanding of all system requirements.

2. Hands-on, screen-by-screen walk-throughs of the Administration and Bidding Systems.

3. SME’s from both teams tested all system functionality on a rotating schedule to ensure complete coverage and understanding of requirements.

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A little more than a month later, our team flew back to Mexico City to install and conduct Acceptance Testing for phase 1 of the project.  During our  first week there, we installed software on COFETEL’s servers, tested CAP internally, and trained COFETEL staff on how to administer an auctions.  This last part was pretty interesting, as it included creating an auction instance, defining auction-specific settings, and managing mid-auction parameters to control auction pace — all using the Administration System we built into CAP.

During week two, we borrowed nearly 20 COFETEL’ers to bid as 8 different bidders over the course of two Mock Auctions.  Each mock auction involved two concurrent Auctions composed of unique license sets, bidding and processing parameters, spectrum caps by region, and alternating round schedules.  This setup was in practice for COFETEL’s plan to run their two recent Auctions, 20 and 21, in parallel.

For our last trip prior to the live auctions, COFETEL scheduled a busy and publicity-rich week.  The Computech team supported Cofetel by creating the presentation and system demonstration for COFETEL to present at three key events that week:

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1. COFETEL’s press conference regarding auction design and rules;

2. The bidding seminar for the spectrum industry and auction participants, which covered the upcoming auction design, specific rules, and nuances of the system interfaces; and

3. Their internal presentation to the Commissioners and Chairman of COFETEL.

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Following the Bidder Seminar, we led mock auctions for the participants to familiarize themselves with CAP’s Spanish release. We administered these auctions using real license (“concurso”) data, but participants took on personas identified by colors such as “Rosa” and “Azul”.  Cofetel and Computech jointly tackled bidder’s questions on such things as activity calculations and results reporting.

And so began our final 2 weeks in Mexico City leading up to COFETEL’s Licitaciones 20 & 21.  In preparation for the big day, we ran internal mock auctions to verify the final software release and the production environment.  While the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in the U.S. administers auctions using remote bidding, Mexico operates using on-site bidding which occurred on COFETEL premises.  In this manner, on the morning of May 25, 2010, Auctions 20 & 21 kicked off with representatives from Mexico’s major telecommunication companies on-site.  The feeling was somewhat bittersweet, yet full of excitement and anticipation for what Round 1 would have in store!

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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).

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).

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!

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.

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.

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.

I wanted to provide that background as an introduction to this afternoon’s entry.  With a number of recent posts highlighting our support of the FCC — or detailing European spectrum management issues — a pleasant shift in focus to our friends from the south.  This May, Computech’s auction team initiated two parallel auctions — Auction 20 & Auction 21 — on-site with the COFETEL auction team and auction participants.  To run the auctions, COFETEL used our auction platform, CAP, and relied on our auction team to act as an extension of their department.