The Argentine unit of Mexican telecoms giant Telmex has asked local telecommunications ministry SeCom for frequency to start providing fixed wireless using CDMA450 technology in 25 towns, Argentine newspaper El Cronista reported.
The company plans to start providing wireless data and voice transmission in towns located in the provinces of San Luis, Mendoza, Santa Fe, Buenos Aires, Tucumán, Santiago del Estero, Chaco, Córdoba, Entre Ríos, Río Negro and Corrientes.
The CDMA Development Group (CDG) has said that CDMA450 technology has a lot of potential for rural areas that have little or no telecoms service.
Telmex's latest deployment could encourage much wider adoption of CDMA 450 technology in the country, CDG's Latin America director Celedonio von Wuthenau told BNamericas.
In other parts of Argentina CDMA450 is currently available in the town of El Calafate in the southern Argentine province of Santa Cruz, where provincial cooperative CoTeCal deployed a commercial network in October 2006, and in Villa Gesell in the Buenos Aires province, where local telephony cooperative Cotel also operates this technology, von Wuthenau said.
von Wuthenau said that according to Argentine regulations, operators can only offer CDMA450 technology in cities with less than 100,000 inhabitants, meaning that Telmex will use it in areas where it may not be economically convenient to roll out WiMax.
In January, Telmex opted to roll out CDMA450 technology in certain rural areas in Mexico rather than WiMax.
And in May, Bolivia's military said it was deploying a CDMA450 fixed wireless network for use in national security issues and for providing rural telephony to isolated regions.
But Telmex also has a WiMax strategy in Argentina. In June, a local court handling the debt restructuring process of local investment group Sociedad Comercial del Plata (SCP) authorized the sale of SCP's broadband access solutions provider Ertach to Telmex.
Ertach's goal for 2007 is to migrate 70% of its nationwide network to WiMax technology.
Telmex Argentina is the country's third largest telecommunications operator, behind Telefónica Argentina (NYSE: TAR) and Telecom Argentina (NYSE: TEO). Telmex also offers voice and data services to the corporate segment.
Posted to the site on 9th August 2007
Posted to: www.cellular-news.com/story/25358.php