WOM Chile missed its 5G deadlines — the state started cashing its guarantees

WOM Chile won spectrum in the country's landmark 5G auction with rollout commitments attached — a network that was scheduled to be complete by October 2023. By May 2025 it had covered 58% of the promised localities and deployed 3,936 antennas, about 78% of the planned network, leaving the operator facing guarantee enforcement and, ultimately, the loss of its licence.

The government had already moved on the fibre side: WOM completed the national fibre optics (FON) project — 7,550km across five regional zones — in April 2025, but only after failing the deadlines for two zones, and the state executed WOM's guarantees over those misses. WOM asked the World Bank's ICSID arbitration tribunal for provisional measures to stop Chile collecting its 5G guarantees; the request was rejected, though the wider arbitration continued while regulator Subtel negotiated possible resolution measures.

Political patience was thinning. Chile's lower house approved a text demanding the government implement 'all appropriate administrative and legal sanctions' over the repeated failures and the weak oversight of them. Subtel head Claudio Araya told lawmakers in May: 'we understand that the non-compliance is serious and, if there is no significant and real progress, what remains for us to implement is the cancellation of the concessions.' WOM's board approved fresh funding for a batch of 120 priority 5G sites in the country's north as the deadline pressure mounted.

The rollout schedule committed to at auction was never re-baselined when it became unachievable, so every deadline became a breach.

Guarantees posted at licensing gave the state a self-executing remedy that needed no negotiation to collect.

The fibre project's late delivery on two of five zones established a compliance record regulators could point to.

Litigation at ICSID read as delay rather than defence, hardening the legislature's demand for sanctions.

A spectrum bid priced for victory becomes a liability schedule: missed rollout milestones convert the guarantee you posted into the state's easiest revenue.

By mid-2025 WOM remained in negotiation with Subtel over measures that could end the enforcement process, while its board funded a final push of 120 priority sites in the north. The company kept operating under the twin threats of guarantee execution and concession cancellation, with the ICSID arbitration still live — its spectrum winnings now the most expensive assets it owned.