Chile Court Suspends Police Telecom Contract, Report Says
CHILE · TECHNOLOGY
Key Facts
- —The country Chile, on South America’s Pacific coast, has two national police forces: the uniformed Carabineros and the PDI detectives.
- —Why it matters The PDI’s tender barred cloud hosting and required data from 134, its public line, to stay on police servers.
- —What happened The procurement court suspended the award to Claro on 17 September after a rival’s challenge, a Chilean news site reported.
- —The money Claro’s offer was 43.33 billion pesos (US$45.1 million) before tax for five years, the lowest of seven bids.
- —What it means The police cannot sign the contract or start a new tender while the suspension lasts.
- —Still open It is not known when the court will rule, or how the PDI and Claro answer the challenge.
Chile’s procurement court has suspended a five-year police telecom contract awarded to Claro, according to a Chilean news report. The order of Thursday 17 September followed a challenge from Sonda, a Chilean IT company that placed second.
Free daily brief — no card needed
Get every Chile story in one morning email
We build you a personalized brief around the topics you follow — free for 7 days. Love it? Your first month after that is US$1.
Interferencia, an independent Chilean investigative site, published the story on Monday 28 September, 11 days after the order. It reported Sonda’s argument that Claro would run the police’s 134 phone line on a cloud platform abroad, which the rules barred.
One-stop reference
Company Intelligence
Every listed company in Latin America — financials, ownership and structure for 1,450+ companies across 26 exchanges, in one place.
Ask Rio Times
17 years of Latin America reporting, on demand.
Answers are generated from Rio Times reporting only â every claim links to its source article.
What the contract covers
The PDI, or Policía de Investigaciones, is Chile’s plain-clothes detective force and works alongside the uniformed Carabineros. The public reaches it on 134, a short number, much as Americans dial 911 in an emergency.
The PDI published the tender, number 2981-2-LR26, on Chile’s state procurement portal Mercado Público on Tuesday 6 January. It covers communications, data links and IT security for the force over 60 months, the portal’s record shows.
Seven companies bid by the closing date of Tuesday 17 March. They included Claro, the brand of Mexico’s América Móvil, the Chilean carriers Entel and GTD Manquehue, and Telefónica Empresas.
The IT companies Sonda, Silica Networks and Tivit also took part. On Friday 12 June the PDI chose Claro through Resolution 413, and it posted the award online on Wednesday 17 June.
How much money is at stake
Claro’s offer was 43.33 billion pesos (US$45.1 million) before tax for the full five years, according to the award record. Dollar values here use a rate of 961.5 pesos to the dollar on Tuesday 29 September.
With Chile’s 19% value-added tax, Claro’s price comes to about 51.57 billion pesos (US$53.6 million), the figure Interferencia cited. Spread over 60 months, that is roughly 859 million pesos (US$894,000) a month including tax.
Sonda offered 45.33 billion pesos (US$47.1 million) before tax, and Entel 51.14 billion pesos (US$53.2 million). Telefónica Empresas quoted the highest price, 74.64 billion pesos (US$77.6 million) with taxes included.
Why the losing bidder went to court
Sonda says the rules required 134 data to stay in the PDI’s own data centres in Santiago and La Serena. The rules called this an “elementary condition” for the contract, according to Interferencia.
In the tender’s question forum, the PDI wrote in answer number 27 that “a cloud strategy will not be accepted”. Sonda says forum answers are as binding as the rules, and this one also required central processors in the force’s server room.
According to Sonda’s filing, Claro’s technical offer says the 134 service would run on Webex Contact Center, a platform made by Cisco. Sonda says that platform is cloud-based and hosted on Amazon Web Services outside Chile.
Sonda lists further faults, including missing internal firewalls and no firm promise on how fast the network recovers from failures. It also says section references in Claro’s technical form did not match its offer, which the rules treat as grounds for rejection.
Two other bidders raised the same concern
Entel and Silica had filed their own complaints with the PDI before the case reached court, Interferencia reported. Both questioned network management consoles hosted only in the maker’s cloud, without express approval in the forum.
Silica also said the backup for Claro’s internet phone service sits in a Claro data centre. If both police sites failed together, it argued, the service would depend on Claro rather than the PDI.
The evaluation report attached to the award recorded technical remarks only on Tivit and Telefónica Empresas, Interferencia said. Both had been excluded before the technical review, Tivit over missing internet links and Telefónica for skipping a compulsory site visit.
The legal report behind the award checked formal points only, such as supplier registration and tax status. It did not assess whether Claro’s offer met the technical rules, according to Interferencia.
How close the scoring was
The PDI’s evaluation panel gave Claro a final score of 64.29%, against 59.36% for Sonda, according to Interferencia. The site traces the 4.93-point gap to three things: price, optional technical features and a gender-inclusion criterion.
On that last criterion, Claro, Entel, GTD and Sonda all declared the same range of female participation, 25% to 40%. Only Claro received points for it, worth 2.10 points of the final score, while the other three got zero.
Those 2.10 points alone account for about 43% of Claro’s lead over Sonda. Why only Claro scored on that criterion has not been explained in public.
What the court ordered
The Tribunal de Contratación Pública, a special court for disputes over state purchases, suspended the procedure for 30 working days. Meanwhile the PDI may not sign or carry out the police telecom contract, nor open a new tender for it.
Sonda had to lodge a bond of 50 million pesos (US$52,000) within five working days, or the suspension would lapse. The court also asked the PDI to hand over its full file, including the evaluation minutes and the scoring guide.
The case, Sonda S.A. against the Policía de Investigaciones de Chile, carries the number 476-2026-A. Sonda asks the court to cancel the award to Claro and order a fresh evaluation of the offers.
The order is known through Interferencia’s report, which DPL News, a Latin American telecom trade site, relayed on Monday. It could not be independently confirmed, and on Tuesday Mercado Público still listed the tender as awarded.
What is not known
No public statement from Claro or the PDI on the suspension had been reported by Tuesday. It is also not known whether Sonda lodged the bond in time, which the order requires for the suspension to hold.
The panel’s reasons for accepting Claro’s platform for the 134 line have not been made public. How the PDI answered the earlier complaints from Entel and Silica is also unknown.
What comes next
The court can uphold the award, or cancel it and send the PDI back to score the offers again. While the suspension lasts, the police cannot sign with Claro or start a new tender for the same work.
The suspension does not mean the court has found that Claro broke the rules. It is a temporary measure that keeps the contract on hold while the judges examine the file.
The case turns on a question many governments now face: whether sensitive police data may sit on servers abroad. In Chile the answer for this contract now rests with the procurement court.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the PDI?
The Policía de Investigaciones de Chile is the country’s plain-clothes detective force, separate from the uniformed Carabineros. The public reaches it on the short phone number 134.
How much is the police telecom contract worth?
Claro’s winning offer was 43.33 billion pesos (US$45.1 million) before tax over five years. With 19% value-added tax it comes to about 51.57 billion pesos (US$53.6 million).
Why does it matter where the data is stored?
The tender required data from the 134 line to stay on police servers in Chile and ruled out a cloud approach. Sonda argues that Claro’s offer relies on a cloud platform hosted abroad.
Has the contract been cancelled?
No. According to Interferencia, the court suspended the procedure for 30 working days while it examines Sonda’s challenge, and no ruling on the merits had been reported by Tuesday.
This article was produced by The Rio Times’ automated newsroom system. How we use AI · Report an error
Read More from The Rio Times
The Rio Times · Power Map
See who really holds power in Latin America
Click to open the Power Map →
