Anatel is to resume auctioning satellite licenses at last, after a gap of almost 12 months. An auction scheduled for October 2001 was canceled a few days beforehand by the Federal Court of Audit (TCU), which objected to the pricing methodology used by Anatel. A notice will be published in the Federal Register (Diário Oficial da União) and major newspapers on Thursday, August 1, with new dates and prices for 17 orbital positions. Bid delivery will be on September 17. Any company incorporated in Brazil can bid, but none can win more than three positions. The new minimum price is 4.13 million Brazilian Reals, up from 3.3m BRL originally. The difference reflects translation from US Dollars using current exchange rates, since the BRL has depreciated sharply against the US Dollar in the last year. Anatel uses a minimum of 1.38m USD. Last year it was 1.3m USD but the Audit Court ordered use of the discounted cashflow method to find net present value.
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