Fractional 5G licenses and prioritizing 4G, operator proposal

The second day of Andicom Congress 2022 was attended by the presidents of the telecommunications operators in the country, which had a space to talk about the panorama of the Colombian connectivity and the challenges that the sector will have to face in the coming years.

(See: Connectivity and fiber optics, priorities of the Petro government).

The person in charge of opening the block of interventions was Marcelo Cataldo, President of you, with his talk: ‘Operation and deployment of 4G and 5G networks in Colombia’. The executive referred to the importance of reinforcing the deployment of 4G networks in the country to close the digital divide, before making the leap towards 5G technology.

“Without a doubt, 5G will bring the future to our lives, for us this technology is not unknown, since we were the first operator to carry out a test open to the public for a week in Medellín. However, it will also lead to other challenges, such as coverage, regulation, costs and security. Today the great challenge that Colombia has is to close the digital gap and when we can lift more than 10 million Colombians out of digital poverty, we will be able to move towards 5G”, remarked Cataldo in his speech.

(See: Claro makes a call to invest and close digital gaps).

For its part, Sergio Gonzalez Guzman president of the ETB, During his panel entitled ‘5G, an additional challenge to democratize the country’s connectivity’, he proposed that the assignment of the 5G spectrum in Colombia should be fractional.

“Due to the fact that 5G technology is not yet necessary in all market niches, Colombia could develop a fractional tender that favors the investment of more operators, as Brazil has done by establishing regional or local lots of the spectrum as a way of favoring the entry of more competitors and close the country’s digital gap”, explained González Guzmán.

(See: ‘Disruptive Technologies Will Drive Change’: Oracle).

Likewise, the executive referred to the fact that the traditional model of national spectrum auctions “It has already been shown that it is not efficient, therefore, the scheme must be different to guarantee the plurality of bidders. For example, of the 6 operators that participated almost 10 years ago in the 4G auction, only 3 remain; furthermore, 18% of users in Colombia still browse on 2G and 3G”.

(See: The importance of an innovative regulation in ICT, according to the CRC).

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