Colombia continues to be a top performer in the Latin American cellular arena, with the highest digital growth and high overall cellular penetration.
As part of its licensing process, the Colombian government mandated that cellular carriers deploy a certain amount of digital technology in their networks from the start-a stipulation that is unique in Latin America. Time Division Multiple Access is the digital standard of choice; Northern Telecom Ltd. and Ericsson Inc. are the vendors.
Six operators serve Colombia-two each in the eastern region, the largest area and including Bogota; the western region; and north coast.
Celumovil operates a network in the east that has 80 percent digital capacity and almost all digital subscribers, with the analog portion of the network primarily used for roamers, according to David Murray, commercial vice president.
Celumovil encourages new subscribers to start off right away with digital, offering them lower activation and per-minute charges for digital. “If you insist on activating an analog phone, you can, but the price is higher,” Murray said.
Comcel, Celumovil’s competitor, doesn’t offer a price advantage for TDMA but also reports high digital take-up, with 98 percent of new subscribers choosing digital and an overall average of 80 percent of subscribers using digital phones, reported Peter Burrowes, Comcel president.
The country, with a population of about 36 million, boasted 215,934 subscribers as of Sept. 30. Celumovil reported 53,010 and Comcel 55,379 subscribers at that time, for a total of 108,389 in the eastern region.
Cellular penetration overall is 0.7 percent in the east and 0.6 percent countrywide after about 18 months of operation, according to Burrowes. That’s an accomplishment, he said, considering it took Mexico, Venezuela and Chile three years to reach that penetration level.
And also unlike those three countries, where new personal communications services licenses are planned, Colombia’s cellular carriers have five-year exclusive licenses. Therefore, no PCS operators or additional cellular carriers will be added to the market before 1999.
Because the carriers are deploying digital so heavily, however, the service offered today bears close resemblance to PCS, asserted Burrowes. He said Comcel currently is implementing caller identification and short-messaging service, two offerings usually associated with PCS-level systems.
Because their networks are digital, the carriers also haven’t had the capacity problems analog carriers have faced in other large Latin America cities. And Murray noted that with TDMA already deployed successfully, Celumovil is not interested in Code Division Multiple Access technology.
“We were the first operator in the world to launch TDMA from day one,” said Murray. “We’ve got three times the capacity from day one, so there’s no real reason … for us to take the jump into CDMA.”
Another difference that sets the Colombian market apart from other markets is its use of calling party pays for pricing services. This structure has allowed Celumovil and Comcel to offer a new service that is basically an “economy” cellular service because it only allows incoming calls, a perfect set-up for businesses that don’t want their employees making personal calls.
Comcel just began its Rapid Cell service with its Christmas promotion and has racked up about 2,500 new users. Celumovil, which has been offering CeluBeeper since August, reports that it now represents 20 percent of its sales.
