BUENOS AIRES, Argentina-British Telecom, in its first venture of any magnitude in Latin America, earlier in the year invested US$150 million to buy a 20-percent stake in Impsat Corp. The acquisition gives BT a stake in an expanding data communications company and also acts as a launching base for BT’s future activities in the region.
“Communications in Latin America are growing. I am particularly delighted to have Impsat as an associate, given its excellent reputation and access to major corporate clients,” said BT executive director Peter Bonfield.
Impsat, established in 1990, offers data transmission services and private telecommunications services for the corporate sector in Latin America, services similar to those provided by BT through its Concert Communications product. The BT-Impsat agreement has made Impsat a Concert distributor and will allow Impsat to expand and reach 56 countries.
Corporate background
Impsat is owned by the local Argentine group Nevasa Holdings (59 percent), Morgan Stanley (21 percent) and now BT (20 percent). It has more than 1,200 corporate clients, is valued at US$750 million and invoiced US$206 million during 1998.
Its main subsidiary is in Argentina and contributes half of Impsat’s total income. The following subsidiaries, in order of importance, are Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, the United States, Brazil and Mexico. However, the subsidiary that has the most potential for growth is the one in Brazil, where it owns 75 percent of Mandic, the leading Internet service provider.
In Brazil, Impsat recently partnered with Philips Brazil to use its CleverCast platform, which carries Internet Protocol (IP) information integrating digital audio, video and data satellite signals with a capacity of of up to 1.2 Megabits per second.
“CleverCast is the most advanced technology that exists in the data-transmission-over-IP market,” said Andres Vacaro, Internet manager of Impsat Brazil.
“The trend is to combine fiber optics in the backbone to link the cities, and that the last mile be wireless because neither the copper nor the coaxial cable provide the bandwidth companies require,” said Marcelo Girotti, general manager of Impsat Argentina. “Data traffic with voice and video applications will steadily increase.”
In Argentina, the company is extending its fiber optic network, operating at 23 GHz, and it just received a 38 GHz license, which its will use for Local Multipoint Distribution Services (LMDS) and point-to-point links.
In addition, Impsat is listed in Argentina’s Liberalization of Telecommunications decree as one of three companies that will be allowed into the competitive long-distance telephony market by the end of the next year.
These developments are framed within the company’s regional strategy, known as Impsat 2000, which includes building a Pan-American broadband network. For the first stage of this project, Impsat has chosen Nortel Networks as its technology provider. Nortel will be in charge of implementing the first stage of the project in the main cities of Argentina and Brazil before September 2000.
“This project will allow Nortel to show what a broad portfolio it has, with ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode), IP and LMDS technologies,” said Juan Gutierrez, Nortel’s Southern Cone president and director.
The project will create a state-of-the-art “gigantic communications network,” linking 170 cities on the continent using a fiber optic network, 1,800 square kilometers of wireless coverage and a new generation of geostationary satellites, said Impsat Executive Vice President Roberto Vivo Chaneton.
The plan consists of five stages, the first of which must be completed in Argentina and Brazil before the end of the year 2000 and the last before 2005. Meanwhile, during 1999 Impsat plans to establish subsidiaries in Chile and Peru and branches in Paraguay and Bolivia.
