AT&T Mexico announced that it has started the deployment of its 5G network in the country.
In a release, the carrier said it has already connected the first 50 mobile devices to its 5G network.
“With the deployment of our 5G network, we continue to innovate and be pioneers in the country,” said Mónica Aspe, CEO of AT&T Mexico. “By putting our customers at the center of all the decisions we make, we are committed to providing them with the latest technology and the best experience.”
“In the next three years, we will deploy 5G in the main markets of the country, starting with the most important cities,” said Nicole Rodríguez, VP and CTO at AT&T Mexico.
The carrier is currently using spectrum in the 2.5 GHz band.
The initial coverage of AT&T’s 5G network is limited to the Cuauhtémoc and the Napoles districts in Mexico City.
With the aim of contributing to the development of a 5G ecosystem that accelerates the use cases that require this new mobile technology, AT&T Mexico also inaugurated its 5G Innovation Laboratory, a space designed to test and validate 5G use cases with collaborators, industry and customers.
“At AT&T Mexico we know that it is essential to boost the country’s developer and entrepreneur ecosystem to enable different use cases while the network is being deployed and we connect more and more Mexicans,” said Sergio Almallo, VP and chief digital marketing officer at AT&T Mexico.
AT&T Mexico also said will work in collaboration with industry, government, universities, startups and large corporations, in the realization of prototypes that use 5G technology to improve business models.
Rival operator America Movil recently said it was ready to launch 5G services in Mexico, without providing a specific timeframe.
“We do everything to be ready for 5G, we still don’t know exactly when we’re going to launch, but we are ready to launch 5G in Mexico. We have a good network,” American Movil’s CEO Daniel Hajj said.
In October, Mexico’s Federal Telecommunications Institute (IFT) has submitted new proposals for 5G spectrum to the country’s Senate.
The IFT has proposed reducing the price of spectrum in the bands that have been set aside for 5G use, with the aim of enabling “‘the efficient allocation of radio spectrum for these [5G] services”
These bands include the 600MHz, L-band (1500MHz), 3.3 GHz-3.45 GHz and 3.45 GHz-3.6 GHz bands.
According to a recent report by the GSMA, 5G technology will represent 14% of mobile connections in Mexico by 2025.
