Americas

In the same week that UNE EPM Telecomunicaciones President Horacio Vélez de Bedout submitted his resignation to the board, the government telecom announced that it has partnered with compatriot firm …

The first South American global cloud computing platform for Amazon Web Services (AWS), an Amazon.com company, was launched today in São Paulo, Brazil. This is the eighth geographic region worldwide …

Cable & Wireless Communications’ Caribbean business Lime said today that it has launched a 100 megabits per second (mbps) residential broadband service in Jamaica, delivering speeds more than 12 times faster …

Telecom infrastructure giant American Tower (AMT) unveiled plans to purchase 2,500 towers from Telefónica’s Mexican subsidiary for about $500 million, excluding value-added tax. AMT said it has entered into definitive …

ANTEL, Uruguay’s government-owned telecom, has said it will launch its commercial LTE network to customers in Montevideo and Punta del Este on Dec. 19. Named Vera, the Internet service is …

The Mexican unit of Spain’s Telefónica has invested U.S. $13 billion in the past 10 years to boost the telecommunications access in the country, Telefónica CEO Juan Antonio Abellán said. …

DirecTV’s Latin America subsidiary Sky Brazil has become the first Brazilian company to launch 4G services. The country’s largest satellite TV service has entered the broadband wireless market offering 4G …

Much of Latin America can now access Apple Inc.’s iTunes Store as the company launched its music store today in Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, …

Nokia Siemens Networks has inaugurated a new center in Mexico to deliver remote services to operators across Latin America and around the world. The service delivery center will provide network …

Japan’s NEC and the Argentinian unit of Spain’s Telefónica have announced the first step in promoting cloud computing services in Latin America. As a result of previous partnership, Telefónica Argentina …

SAP’s strategy to go beyond traditional enterprise resource planning, moving toward mobile, big data and cloud computing has begun a new chapter. The German enterprise software giant has acquired SuccessFactors, a provider of cloud-based human capital management solutions.

The explosion in Brazil’s class C population — defined as families with monthly incomes of $660 to $2,850 — has been accompanied by changes in consumer spending habits by members of that class, especially in the mobile phone market.

Less than 15 days after selling the former Motorola Solutions’ WiMAX business to NewNet Communication Technologies, Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN)  announced today that Adtran Inc. (Nasdaq: ADTN) plans to acquire its …

Mexico’s telecommunications sector grew 10.7% in the third quarter, according to the Index of Telecommunications Sector Production (Itel) from Cofetel, the country’s telecom regulator. The rate is higher than 2010′s …

The Brazilian electronics industry will close this year with revenue of U.S. $73.7 billion (R$134 billion), an increase of 8% from 2010 but short of an initial expectation of 13%, nonprofit trade group Abinee said this week, citing a trade imbalance and a stronger real.

Entel, the second-largest mobile telephone operator in Chile, has signed a $200 million loan with Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi and a unit of Bank of Nova Scotia. The money will be used to pay down a $600 million loan Entel has coming due in June.

Global enterprises are shifting to mobile-only communications more rapidly than expected, as well as adopting unified communications services more broadly, notes the 2011 BroadSoft Mobile Enterprise of the Future survey. This trend could be an opportunity for mobile network operators, because enterprises believe their MNO is better positioned to deliver services such as video calling and conferencing, Web conferencing, voice mail, presence management and instant messaging than fixed-line providers like Microsoft, Google or IBM.

Nextel Mexico, the local unit of Virginia-based NII Holdings and Mexican group Iusacell have agreed to withdraw lawsuits and end litigation related to an October 2010 auction.

The Colombian unit of the Spanish group Telefónica will receive about U.S. $500 million from its parent company in 2012 from for investments, focusing on expanding its infrastructure for data services, fixed and mobile telephony.

Although IT consumerization is a relatively new phenomenon, it cannot be ignored by chief information officers. IBM is taking steps to address enterprise-class requirements with a series of new mobile apps.

At an auction of frequency bands leftovers held by Brazilian telecom regulator Anatel on Dec. 6, carriers offered $132.7 million for 15 lots of frequency sub-bands used for the provision of personal mobile services.

The Brazilian unit of Spain’s Telefónica aims to be the biggest and best telecom provider in Brazil — and that consumers recognize it as such. That might not be easy, because Telefónica Brazil faced serious problems with its Internet broadband service Speed in 2008, and it took some time to recover from the brand damage. However, the current scenario is brighter: Little more than one year after the mobile carrier Vivo’s acquisition, all Telefónica’s products will be rebranded under the Vivo name.

Mobile broadband use has overtaken fixed-line access, GSMA Latin America says, adding that the main challenge for the region’s countries is to support the demand for data traffic. Public policies are necessary for mass access to networks, said GSMA Latin America Director Sebastian Hair, who opened the organization’s plenary meeting this week in El Salvador.

Although contact center solutions represent the biggest part of Avaya’s revenues, the company aims to be recognized beyond that business, as an important player of the multibillion-dollar enterprise market for communication tools.