As Colombia moves into the next phase of its 5G rollout, the regulator’s attitude towards spectrum will need to change. Currently, Colombia’s Ministry of ICT (MinTIC) has introduced spectrum caps with the aim of creating competition and preventing a single MNO from dominating the market with more spectrum than its competitors. I am.
Several Colombian MNOs are currently at or approaching this cap.
“It is important that MinTIC takes action to increase the spectrum cap,” Marino said.
“This way, we can avoid wasting spectrum assets and benefit the industry and consumers.”
Unlockable connectivity. ”
With a population of 46.7 million and 76 million mobile phone subscribers, Colombia is one of Latin America’s largest telecommunications markets. But while regional peers such as Brazil and Chile have allocated 5G spectrum and launched services, Colombia has lagged behind.
That all changed at the end of 2023. The spectrum auction organized by the Ministry of ICT (MinTIC) saw the participation of all four mobile phone companies. Claro (American Movil), WOM, Tigo (Millicom) and Movistar (Telefonica) acquired his 5G license.
Tigo and Movistar made the joint bid after forming a joint venture in June to acquire 5G spectrum and roll out the service.
Telecall Colombia, the domestic subsidiary of Brazilian MVNO Telecall, also participated in the auction.
The four bidding parties each secured 80MHz of spectrum in the 3.5GHz band, with Claro bidding for additional spectrum in the 2.5GHz band suitable for 4G.
In total, the spectrum auction provided the government with a profit of COP 1.37 trillion ($352.73 million).
Fiber Optic and Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) Opportunities
Although a lot of money was spent on the 3.5GHz band, no carriers bid for the additional spectrum available in the 700MHz or 1900MHz bands.
Such initial investments are common around the world. GSMA explains that the 3.5Ghz range is the basis for the first implementation of his 5G globally as it balances coverage and capacity.
In particular, high-band (mmWave) spectrum operating above 24GHz was released from the first spectrum auction. A follow-up report is scheduled for April.
Jim Poole, vice president of business development at global data center company Equinix and an expert in the 5G field, said this highlights the initial strategy and direction for implementation by the government and Colombian carriers. I believe that I am doing so.
“I think we’ll see a lot of fixed wireless access terminals emerge as an alternative to expensive copper wire and fiber to the home,” he tells Capacity.
While textile penetration in Colombia and throughout Latin America is lower than in Europe and North America,
The number of mobile phones far exceeds the population of the country.
An initial investment in 3.5 GHz spectrum could lead to increased fixed wireless access, as most consumers access content and data services through mobile devices.
“It’s much easier to put fiber in a tower in a city and have it reach all the way to the adjacent suburbs and rural areas,” says Poole. ”
Juan Marino, Nokia’s CTO of Customer Experience for Colombia, agrees.
He noted that densely populated areas in major cities will be targeted first, but the rollout will be expanded to other metropolitan areas as per the terms of the auction.
“Following this, 5G deployment will be used to provide fixed wireless access to suburban areas where fiber to the home is either too costly or geographically unfeasible.” he told Capacity.
Marino said 5G will be used in this way to accelerate broadband penetration into consumers, homes, businesses and industry.
Private networks and IoT
Improving industrial connectivity is a key objective of 5G.
“4G was really designed around the density of people, whereas 5G was designed around the density of devices,” Poole said.
This will be the same in Colombia. Nokia is already working on rolling out 4G LTE private networks and expects this trend to continue after the rollout of 5G.
“We have primarily deployed private networks over LTE for mining and ports. These industries are the pioneers,” Morino says.
However, he acknowledges that there are opportunities for private networks and IoT deployments across a variety of industries in Colombia, from airports, logistics, and oil and gas to manufacturing and transportation.
Investing in data centers
Poole believes that the rollout of 5G will further increase the demand for Colombia’s data center capacity as carriers increase.
Telcos have come to realize that the data center business and the access business are very different.
“telcos are now much more focused on getting people online than accommodating the content and services they want to access,” he says.
This is evidenced by Equinix’s first entry into Colombia, when it acquired Verizon’s data center in Bogota in 2017.
In addition to hyperscalers and network providers, Equinix has local cloud companies, gaming companies, and a number of content companies serving the Colombian market as customers of its facilities.
Since then, we’ve opened a second data center nearby to accommodate increased demand.
5G use cases such as cloud gaming and augmented reality will require network providers to establish point-of-presence multi-tenant data centers like Equinix, where cloud access and caching infrastructure from CDNs and gaming companies is aggregated. there is.
“The reason Bogota’s network density is so good is because Bogota’s network customers provide all the content and cloud access to the local market,” explains Poole.
“In Colombia, services and applications that rely on video content, high interactivity, and large amounts of data are likely to leverage 5G,” agrees Marino.
