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LatAm: Telcos say indoor arena coverage ready for World Cup

The FIFA World Cup begins today in Brazil, starting with a match between the host country and Croatia in São Paulo at the Arena Corinthians. Around 600,000 foreign tourists are expected to arrive in Brazil for the World Cup, and according to the telecom union SindiTelebrasil, telecom operators’ networks are ready to handle the increased data and voice traffic.
Major carriers Claro, Oi, Nextel, TIM and Vivo have teamed up to deploy indoor wireless coverage at all 12 stadiums. The infrastructure follows the guidelines used during the London Olympic games. Together, the carriers made investments totaling $101.2 million to build shared optic fiber and antenna infrastructure.
In total, 3,724 indoor cellular antennas and 1,014 Wi-Fi antennas were installed in the arenas to provide voice and data services for 2G, 3G and LTE services. In Brazil, LTE was deployed in the 2.5 GHz band, which will limit access to most tourists as device support for that deployment is very limited.
The carriers are using 144 radio base stations to cover areas outside the arenas, an average of 12 antennas per stadium. Telecom operators also deployed Wi-Fi offload projects to cover external areas near the arenas in the cities of Brasília, Cuiabá, Manaus, Porto Alegre, Rio de Janeiro and Salvador.
As for LTE coverage, all the cities that are hosting soccer games have 4G services. Currently, in Brazil, there are 2.5 million LTE connections, and carriers are continuing to expand service coverage. Vivo leads in LTE coverage, reaching 94 cities.
In total, the carriers invested $580.8 million to better prepare the cities that are hosting the games, with improvements focused on both 3G and 4G coverage. The companies say that over the past year, more than 15,000 new 3G and 4G antennas, and 120,000 Wi-Fi hot spots were installed. In addition, more than 10,000 kilometers of optical fiber were added.
LTE in the region: 4G Americas reported that LTE subscriptions in Latin America grew 50% from two million to three million in the first quarter of this year. Chris Pearson, president of 4G Americas, said that Brazil is leading the region in the addition of LTE connections, spurred by the World Cup and plans for the 2016 Olympics. “The demand for mobile broadband services across the region continues to positively affect the increase in LTE subscriptions,” he said.
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ABOUT AUTHOR

Roberta Prescott
Roberta Prescott
Editor, Americasrprescott@rcrwireless.com Roberta Prescott is responsible for Latin America reporting news and analysis, interviewing key stakeholders. Roberta has worked as an IT and telecommunication journalist since March 2005, when she started as a reporter with InformationWeek Brasil magazine and its website IT Web. In July 2006, Prescott was promoted to be the editor-in-chief, and, beyond the magazine and website, was in charge for all ICT products, such as IT events and CIO awards. In mid-2010, she was promoted to the position of executive editor, with responsibility for all the editorial products and content of IT Mídia. Prescott has worked as a journalist since 1998 and has three journalism prizes. In 2009, she won, along with InformationWeek Brasil team, the press prize 11th Prêmio Imprensa Embratel. In 2008, she won the 7th Unisys Journalism Prize and in 2006 was the editor-in-chief when InformationWeek Brasil won the 20th media award Prêmio Veículos de Comunicação. She graduated in Journalism by the Pontifícia Universidade Católica de Campinas, has done specialization in journalism at the Universidad de Navarra (Spain, 2003) and Master in Journalism at IICS – Universidad de Navarra (Brazil, 2010) and MBA – Executive Education at the Getulio Vargas Foundation.