@ LTE LatAm: Erasmo Rojas discusses the challenges and opportunities for the region

RIO DE JANEIRO – Latin America in 2011 will present a whole host of challenges and opportunities for the world of wireless said Erasmo Rojas of 4G Americas on Tuesday, speaking at Informa’s LTE Latin America summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Rojas said there were over 39 million broadband connections in Latin America by mid-2010 – and that the telecom industry was looking healthy with 64 networks in service across 27 countries with 38 million subscriptions.
With 3G doing well, HSPA+ is also trending in Latin America, with the technology being rolled out in seven markets by networks including Bermuda Digital Communications Ltd.’s CellularOne (Bermuda), Digicel Group Ltd. (Bermuda), Entel Movil (Chile), Movistar (Chile), Group Iusacell S.A. de C.V. (Mexico), AT&T Mobility (Puerto Rico) and T-Mobile USA Inc. (Puerto Rico).
Though it’s still early days, LTE is also seeing some buzz and momentum in the Americas, with the first scheduled launch of the new generation technology set for the second half of 2011 in Columbia by operator UNE.
Meanwhile, LTE trials are underway in several other Latin America countries; Argentina (Telecom Personal, since June 2010, in 2.6 GHz and Telefonica since December 2010, in 1.7/2.1 GHz), Brazil (Oi since June 2011, with four vendors in the 2.6 GHz band), Chile (Entel PCS since December 2009, in 2.6 GHz), Mexico (Am