Brazilian carrier Vivo, owned by the Spain’s Telefónica, expanded its HSPA+ services to nearly all of Brazil’s states, except for Roraima and Amapá. The business offerings started April 4 under the commercial name “3GPlus.”
Vivo is Brazil’s largest mobile operator with nearly 30% market share, representing 74 million subscribers.
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The deployment of the HSPA+ network started during the fourth quarter of 2011 with implementation in the São Paulo metropolitan area. With the new technology, Vivo aims to improve quality and the overall user experience with mobile Internet services, by providing speeds up to three-times higher than what is currently available.
Currently Vivo has the largest coverage in Brazil. Its 3G service is available in more than 2,700 municipalities in the country. In a recent survey, consultant firm Teleco found that 48.5% of municipalities and 84% of the general population in Brazil are covered by 3G access.
However, the four big carriers concentrate on providing services in large cities. In 2011, 41.5% of Brazilian residents lived in cities that had mobile broadband services provided by four carriers, while 34.5% of municipalities and 18.9% of the population had only one provider. An estimated 52.8% of municipalities and 16.8% of the population did not have access to mobile broadband.
The HSPA+ network is something that carriers are working on and staring to deploy. The 4G Americas Association noted that in mid-March, Latin America had 32 HSPA+ networks distributed in 20 countries. Five commercial LTE networks and 300,000 LTE connections are expected by the end of 2012.
