Mexico’s Promoting Body of Investment in Telecommunications (Promtel) has announced that the country’s ‘Red Compartida’ wholesale 4G shared network has finally gone live on the 700MHz band some 10 days ahead of schedule. The network initially covers some 32.2 percent of the country’s population, including large parts of Aguascalientes, Celaya, Colima, Guadalajara, Monterrey, Morelia, Puebla, Queretaro, Tepic, Toluca and Mexico City, as well as 29 of the country’s 111 “Pueblos Magicos” tourist destinations. “In six years’ time, Mexico will be the world’s third most connected country,” said the country’s president Enrique Pena Nieto at the launch of the service held in the headquarters of Altan Redes, the consortium awarded the 20-year concession to build and run the network.
A total of 2,275 towers have so far been installed to bring 4.5G technology to a total of 36.2 million Mexicans, said Promtel. The aim is to expand the network to 50 percent of the population by 2020 and to 92.5 percent by 2024. Operators including Televisa and Telefonica have said they are negotiating with Altan to tap into the network although America Movil last month said it had no intention of connecting to Red Compartida because its needs are already covered by its own infrastructure.
