Cantv Expects to Launch GSM in May

Venezuelan state-owned telco Cantv expects to launch its GSM mobile telephony overlay in May 2008, government news agency ABN reported company president Socorro Hernández as saying.

Hernández said Cantv's mobile unit Movilnet's CDMA platform would continue to coexist with the new GSM one.

Movilnet ended the third quarter with 8.9mn active lines, an increase of 32.5% compared to the same period in 2006.

The executive said that Cantv expects to interconnect all of its fiber optic networks in the country by the end of 2008 to increase capacity.

With the plan, Cantv's network will expand to 14,000km, taking into account networks owned by state generation company Edelca, power utilities Cadafe and EDC, state oil company Pdvsa and state-owned telco Telecom Venezuela.

Hernández said the company expects to participate in an auction to deploy a 5,000km-fiber optic network in the north-central region of Llanera.

Cantv ended the quarter with 3.9mn fixed lines in service, 21.1% more than the same time in 2006.

Posted to the site on 2nd January 2008