SAO PAULO (WiMAX Day). Brazil’s presidential palace has given communications minister Hélio Costa orders to defy telecoms regulator Anatel and alter the rules for an upcoming auction for WiMAX spectrum licenses in the 3.5GHz and 10GHz bands, reported local newspaper Folha de S Paulo.

Anatel last week rejected a request by Costa to delay the auction, due to be awarded on September 18, in order to include certain amendments to the bidding rules. Brazil’s main fixed line companies have complained that the proposed bidding rules exclude them from competing for licenses in their existing operating areas and argue that the rules seriously limit their capacity to offer WiMAX wireless broadband services.

The minister also wants to reserve at least one of the frequencies for the government’s digital inclusion program and require license holders to provide coverage to small as well as large cities across the country. If it goes ahead, this would be the time the ministry has chosen to override Anatel’s authority and intervened directly in a decision that lies within the regulator’s domain. The ministry is seeking to modify the bidding rules before August 24. The concession holders claim that the clause will stop them from providing new technologies such as WiMAX, which will be more competitive.

Thomas Abreu, a telecoms analyst at Pyramid Research, believes that the way the government is going about making the amendments is wrong and that it should have made its complaints before Anatel published the rules, “The way it is being handled is shameful,” Abreu told BNamericas.

The dispute is not the first time that Anatel and the government have been at loggerheads. In 2005, Anatel planned its activities according to a budget of 377mn reais (US$176mn), but only received about half that amount by year-end. According to Anatel, budget difficulties led the institution to temporarily shut down its call center last year.