YOU ARE AT:AmericasChile to invest $700M in LTE; Brazil pilot to organize poles

Chile to invest $700M in LTE; Brazil pilot to organize poles

After several delays, the deployment of LTE in Chile is about to begin. Claro, Entel and Movistar, which won access to spectrum, were confirmed by the country’s Comptroller General.

Private carriers are set to invest $700 million to deploy the next generation of telecommunications services using the 700 MHz band. Of this total, about $300 million will be invested in the infrastructure. The amount of $700 million comprises a larger investment plan: The telecom industry has committed to invest a total of $22 billion over the next 10 years to improve and enhance its services across the country.

According to the rules of the auctions, carriers that won the licenses must deploy LTE in rural areas and the service in these regions cannot cost more than the price charged in the main cities.

Poles x telcos pole
TelComp, the Brazilian association of telecom providers, is conducting a project aimed at organizing the use of the electricity poles by communications service providers. Currently, each pole hosts six entries for the carriers to hang infrastructure, such as cable and fiber. According to the rules, each major communication group can use only one spot. In an interview with RCR Wireless News, TelComp’s President João Moura noted that the competitive carriers, usually small and niche companies, fail to get an access point to connect their infrastructure. In addition, there’s a lack of maintenance of the poles and in several poles the cables are in a dangerous situation.

The pilot project will begin in a small area of the city of São Paulo where there’s a huge concentration of poles. TelComp is going to identify which carrier is using the pole and count how many spots it’s using to check if it’s is accordance with the rules. The association will also test some technologies to increase the number of carriers that can use the same spot. Moura believes that by the first quarter of 2016 the project will be completed and the association will have tested technologies and improved the use of electricity poles by the telecom industry.

More Latin American news:
LATAM – Ericsson announced its plan to acquire the assets of Icon Americas, a Guatemala-based consulting and systems integration company that has approximately 250 employees and consultants. The acquisition, which is expected to close in the third quarter, will help Ericsson expand its portfolio of consulting and systems integration services and OSS/BSS solutions in Latin America.

BRAZIL – TIM announced that it’s expanding the coverage of its LTE services in the state of São Paulo. According to the company, after the inclusion of more areas, the carrier will count 17 municipalities covered with 4G.

CHILE – VTR’s revenue increased 7% in the second quarter of 2015 in comparison to the same period last year.

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ABOUT AUTHOR

Roberta Prescott
Roberta Prescott
Editor, [email protected] Roberta Prescott is responsible for Latin America reporting news and analysis, interviewing key stakeholders. Roberta has worked as an IT and telecommunication journalist since March 2005, when she started as a reporter with InformationWeek Brasil magazine and its website IT Web. In July 2006, Prescott was promoted to be the editor-in-chief, and, beyond the magazine and website, was in charge for all ICT products, such as IT events and CIO awards. In mid-2010, she was promoted to the position of executive editor, with responsibility for all the editorial products and content of IT Mídia. Prescott has worked as a journalist since 1998 and has three journalism prizes. In 2009, she won, along with InformationWeek Brasil team, the press prize 11th Prêmio Imprensa Embratel. In 2008, she won the 7th Unisys Journalism Prize and in 2006 was the editor-in-chief when InformationWeek Brasil won the 20th media award Prêmio Veículos de Comunicação. She graduated in Journalism by the Pontifícia Universidade Católica de Campinas, has done specialization in journalism at the Universidad de Navarra (Spain, 2003) and Master in Journalism at IICS – Universidad de Navarra (Brazil, 2010) and MBA – Executive Education at the Getulio Vargas Foundation.