Ecuador‘s national telecom regulator, Conatel, announced that the country will adopt the 700 MHz spectrum band, also known as the digital dividend, to deploy the next generation of telecommunication services using LTE technology. Conatel also released that it has chosen the Asia Pacific Telecommunity (APT) segmentation standard.
Follow RCR Wireless News – Americas on Twitter, Facebook and subscribe to our free periodic newsletters
Ecuador’s Minister of Telecommunications and Information Society, Jaime Guerrero, said that adopting the proposed APT segmentation for 700 MHz shows that the Ecuadorian government is continuing to take firm steps to foster and encourage the deployment of telecommunications infrastructure for services and applications that enhance the Ecuadorians’ quality of life.
Guerrero noted that APT offers the best performance for the deployment of IMT (International Mobile Telecommunications), making the most efficient use of radio spectrum. In a statement, Conatel highlighted that APT allows flexibility in defining spectrum block size to  better fit the characteristics of available technologies and the needs of the country, avoiding the use of guard bands for the coexistence of FDD and TDD systems in the same band.  It also provides a greater amount of spectrum to be exploited by 4G technologies.
Ecuador, thus, becomes the fourth market in Latin America to adopt the APT standard, after Chile, Colombia and Mexico.
