In February, America Movil launched 5G services in 18 of Mexico’s largest cities, reaching more than 48 million people
Mexican telecom group America Movil expects to double the number of 5G sites in Mexico by the end of the year, America Movil’s CEO Daniel Hajj said during a conference call with investors.
Hajj also said that the telco will gradually increase its 5G capex once users migrate from 3G and 4G networks to 5G. “As we can move more customers from 4G to 5G or 3G to 5G then the capex should be more in 5G because we have more customers there and take out some capex on 4G to put it in 5G (…) If we grow faster, than we put more on 5G, if we grow at slower pace we are going to put more on 4G,” he added.
American Movil’s COO Oscar Von Hauske said that the telco had already launched 5G in Mexico, Dominican Republic and in limited areas in Peru. He added that the company is in process to roll out 5G in additional markets in Latin America.
Von Hauske also said that the company aims to have nearly 100 Mexican cities covered with 5G technology by the end of this year.
In February, America Movil launched 5G services in 18 of Mexico’s largest cities, reaching more than 48 million people.
The company, which operates in the mobile telephony segment through the Telcel brand, initially launched 5G in Mexico City, Monterrey, Guadalajara, Tijuana and Puebla, among other cities.
Telcel is Mexico’s largest mobile operator, with nearly 80 million subscribers.
America Movil operates in at least 10 markets, mainly in Latin America. In Europe, the telco partially owns dutch telco KPN and Austrian operator Telekom Austria.
America Movil’s rival telco AT&T Mexico had previously announced that it had started the deployment of its 5G network in the country using spectrum in the 2.5 GHz band.
The initial coverage of AT&T’s 5G network was limited to the Cuauhtémoc and the Napoles districts in Mexico City.
Nicole Rodríguez, VP and CTO at AT&T Mexico previously said that the telco will deploy 5G in the main markets of the country, starting with the most important cities within the next three years.
Earlier this year, Mexican telecommunications regulator IFT had confirmed that the 5G spectrum auction for mobile services will take place during 2022.
The 5G auction was included in the watchdog’s 2022 work plan, which outlines the bidding process for spectrum blocks in the 600MHz, 3.3GHz and 3.5GHz bands, as well as the L band.
This 5G auction was initially expected to take place in the second half of 2020, but was delayed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
