Argentina’s Ministry of Federal Planning, Public Investment and Services has held a meeting with Vietnamese telecoms company Viettel Group to discuss investment and strategic partnership opportunities in the country’s telecoms sector. During the meeting, Viettel expressed its willingness to explore all possibilities of investment and partnership with Argentine state-owned operator Arsat. The latter was handed almost 25% of the country’s 3G frequencies in September last year, after an auction for the 850MHz and 1900MHz spectrum was cancelled by the government as only one of the six participants – Claro – met the financial requirements of the tender. Arsat plans to use the mobile spectrum to provide wholesale wireless services to small- and medium-sized companies and local telecoms cooperatives under the brand Libre.ar. The state-owned company already offers broadband and digital TV mainly in rural and underserved parts of the country, and also oversees the deployment of the government’s ‘Argentina Conectada’ national fibre-optic network project"