LTE – 5G in CaLA – Central & Latin America – Snapshot

LTE – 5G in CaLA – Central & Latin America – Market Snapshot

LTE is deployed in virtually all central and Latin American countries/territories

LTE has been launched by 140 operators in 51 countries/territories in Central and Latin America (including fully mobile networks and FWA broadband networks using LTE).

A couple of the world’s few remaining LTE ‘not-spots’ (i.e. countries/territories with no LTE at all) can be found in remote parts of Central and Latin America. GSA is not aware of any launched LTE networks on Bouvet Island, or South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. But all other territories/countries in CALA have at least one launched LTE network.

Recent additions to the LTE networks in the region have been:

• Cuba (Etecsa/Cubacel) in 2019
• The Falkland Islands (Sure) in 2018
• Grenada (Digicel) in 2018
• Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (Digicel) in 2018.LTE FWA has been deployed in the majority of Central and Latin America countries and territories

LTE FWA has been deployed in the majority of Central and Latin America countries and territories

LTE Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) has been launched by 44 operators in 28 countries/territories in Central and Latin America.

The Argentinian operator, Telecom Argentina has been testing a FWA offering.

A number of countries/territories without a FWA offering do have operators providing MiFi-based broadband services. These countries/territories include the Bahamas, Curaçao, Dominica, El Salvador, Granada, Paraguay, the US Virgin Islands and Venezuela.

LTE-Advanced  not-spots are becoming fewer in number

LTE-Advanced networks have been launched in 27 countries/territories within Central and Latin America, by 45 operators.

Recent launches in the region include:

• Claro in Colombia in 2020
• Tigo in El Salvador in 2020
• Entel Movil in Bolivia in 2019
• Digicel T&T in Trinidad and Tobago in 2019

A further seven operators are known to be testing/trialling, planning or are deploying LTE-Advanced networks. This includes the first LTE-Advanced network in Aruba, which is being deployed by Setar NV.

The LTE-Advanced networks in CALA are not as fast as those in Europe and Asia. However, speeds are increasing and over half of the operators in the region with LTE-A networks claim peak throughput speeds of 200 Mbps or more in a commercial service (see next slide). In fact six now offer peak theoretical download speeds in excess of 500 Mbps.

LTE – 5G in CaLA – Central & Latin America – Snapshot

©GSA 2020

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