The news was announced by Hughes Network Systems during the recent Andicom conference in Colombia. The HughesNet internet service is expected to be available by the third quarter of 2017, and the company has said that it is the only vendor in the region offerings speeds of up to 25Mbps.
The Colombian subsidiary of Hughes Network Systems is working with Teka Services, a local IT distributor, to launch its HughesNet internet services in the country.
After the company’s recent success in the deployment of the HughesNet satellite in Brazil, the first in Latin America, Carlos Fernández, CEO of Teka, said: "Colombia shares many of Brazil's market dynamics, mainly the high unattended demand for high-speed internet access in areas where terrestrial Internet providers have partial or non-existent coverage."
Hughes said that it aims to offer its satellite Internet service in 90% of Colombian territory and that Teka will be responsible for sales, installation, after-sales field services and logistics.
According to recent developments in the region, the Minister of Information and Communications, David Luna, a member of the Communications Regulatory Commission in Colombia, said: “As of January 1, 2019, any service called broadband should have a speed of 25Mbps. There may be less speed but that cannot be called broadband. Meaning that any internet connections that operators want to sell as broadband will have to be at least 25Mbps."
