III. Proposed Transaction

Almendral will acquire a 54.76 percent voting interest in ENTEL Chile from Telecom Italia. As a result, Almendral will hold a controlling interest in Americatel. The transaction will occur at the holding company level and will not result in any transfer or assignment of the operating authority held by Americatel, movement of Americatel's customers, or change in Americatel's name, rates, terms or conditions. Americatel's existing management and technical team will continue to manage its own day-to-day operations in the United States. Thus, the change will not be apparent to Americatel's customers.

The applicants represent that the transaction "will serve the public interest by permitting Americatel to continue to offer its existing services and providing Americatel with access to additional resources that will allow Americatel to better assess and implement its business strategies going forward." Application at 8.

Applicants assert that the transaction must close on March 25, 2005. However, the application was not filed until January 28, 2005, and applicants initially provided Almendral's financial information in Chilean currency (without information on the exchange rate), and Almendral's annual report and accountants' financial certification in Spanish without translation. We caution the firms representing applicants, and applicants themselves, that it is unreasonable to expect the Commission to act on an expedited schedule with this type of inadequate information. Materials essential to an application - including financial information - should always be translated into English and presented in American currency. Applicants provided translated information by supplements to its application filed on February 1, 2005 and February 22, 2005. Thus, applicants made it difficult for the Commission to meet the March 25, 2005 deadline.