BARCELONA, Spain — While the expansion of LTE is expected to be a major topic this year in Latin America, vendors who do business with local carriers expect the fourth generation of telecommunications to boost their operations. Two of those companies are Cambridge Broadband Networks and Ruckus Wireless, which spoke with RCR Wireless News during this week’s Mobile World Congress event.
John Naylon, CTO and founder of Cambridge Broadband Networks, disclosed the company’s strategies focusing on Latin America, as well as the company’s role in managing network capacity for the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. CBNL said it is tapping into experience learned from previous work for the 2012 Summer Olympic Games in London and at the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa.
Fabian Costallat, regional sales manager for South Cone Region at Ruckus Wireless, talked about the potential for LTE deployments in unlicensed spectrum across the region; the growing importance of Latin America for the company; and how data offloading has become an important role for carriers and end users. Costallat also touched on the results of a data offload project for the World Cup.
“We saw a 30% adoption of Wi-Fi over the total of people present at the World Cup,” Costallat said.
As for the deployment of LTE in unlicensed spectrum, Costallat believes that first deployments and trials will start over the next year.
Editor’s Note: Celistics paid for travel costs to Barcelona.
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