As Latin America begins to forge plans for next generation LTE technology, two countries in particular are blazing a path for others to follow.
Alfonso Ehijo, CTO of Reference Center for Technology and Innovation at the University of Chile, in charge of the technological evolution and the relationship with operators and vendors, told RCR that both countries had emerged as test beds, but for entirely different reasons.
Chile, he said, had emerged at the forefront of LTE testing owing to its highly competitive telecoms market and big convergent operators like America Movil and Telefonica using the relatively small country as a lab for new technologies. The fact that Chile’s regulators are also very compliant has helped the situation a great deal too, making it a very safe test bed.
On the other hand, UNE in Colombia was a fixed line operator which unexpectedly won spectrum and decided that since it had no legacy, it would simply move to LTE directly, having plenty of cash in the bank and no problems of upgradable scalability to worry about.
UNE is scheduled to roll out its full LTE platform in the second half of 2011, and other LatAm operators are watching closely, while they decide whether an early move from HSPA would be worth their while.
At the moment, the consensus seems to be that it is not, but if all goes well in Chile and Colombia, it may change minds across the continent.
