BUENOS AIRES, Argentina-2000 marked the year GSM fully made its way into the Latin American market.
The first cellular networks were installed in Latin America during the late 1980s, with AMPS analog technology. Later, the majority migrated to TDMA and CDMA equipment, following the Northern American experience.
The first installation of a GSM network occurred in 1997 by Entel PCS in Chile. This pioneering event was repeated during 2000 by four more operators in the Southern Cone: Entel and Nuevatel in Bolivia and Copesa and Vox in Paraguay.
European focus
The cellular telephony operators whose largest shareholders are North American companies generally have chosen CDMA and TDMA networks, while European-owned carriers prefer GSM. This is the case of Entel Chile, which not only has acquired 1 million users during the last three years, but was recently put under the control of Telecom Italia, which paid US$905 million to expand its presence in the second-largest telecommunications group in Chile. Telecom Italia previously had 25 percent of Entel’s shares, and it now owns 54 percent of the company.
The Entel PCS infrastructure provider is Ericsson, which also installed a similar network for Entel in Bolivia during 2000. Ericsson also just signed an agreement with Telecom Personal in Argentina, owned by France Telecom and Telecom Italia, for the “provision of GPRS/GSM network infrastructure.”
So now, the largest cellular telephony operator in Argentina-with 2 million users and a 32-percent market share-has initiated a transition from
TDMA to General Packet Radio Service (GPRS)/GSM. This is an unprecedented measure for Argentina. Telef
