Latin America in expected to count 118 million HSPA subscriptions by the end of 2012, which is a little less than the 133 million HSPA and LTE subscriptions forecast for the United States and Canada, according to a report from 4G Americas. However, by the end of 2013, HSPA and LTE subscriptions in Latin America are forecast to increase to 181 million connections, exceeding the 160 million connections expected across the United States and Canada.

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According to Erasmo Rojas, director of Latin America and the Caribbean at 4G Americas, Latin America has issues and concerns similar to the United States regarding spectrum allocation and expeditious auction processes.

“The governments in the region are working to bring out more spectrum in free market-oriented auctions,” Rojas explained. “In order to incentivize the sizable investments required by operators, 4G Americas emphasizes the importance of fair and transparent rules for auctioning as well as the international harmonization of spectrum bands throughout the Americas region.”

Currently, there are 72 commercial HSPA deployments in 31 countries across Latin America, and of those networks 31 have been upgraded to HSPA+ in 19 countries. In addition, there are five commercial LTE networks in Latin America using both FDD and TDD modes, and estimates are that there will be 300,000 LTE connections in the region by the end of the year.

4G America forecasts that Latin America may reach 455 million 3GPP mobile broadband connections by the end of 2016, while the United States and Canada will reach more than 251 million connections, together approaching three quarters of a billion 3GPP mobile broadband subscriptions.