UNE EMP said it has awarded two separate contracts for the roll-out, with phase one of the projects, involving supply and installation implemented by Huawei and Ericsson in charge of network management phase. The operator won Colombia’s 2.5GHz spectrum auction in June last year, and it has now set a target of Q1 2012 for the commercial roll-out of its LTE network.
Initial deployments will cover the major cities of Bogota, Medellin, Barranquilla and Cali and then extend across the rest of Columbia.
BuddeComm analyst Lucia Bibolini stated in a recent report on Columbia that the country’s telecoms market “could offer substantial returns for investors willing to take on emerging markets risks”.
BuddeComm notes the market is continuing to experience intensifying competition due to an emergence of a rapidly growing broadband sector, which will only increase as operators like UNE EMP begin to deploy LTE networks.
