Argentina. At the end of the fourth quarter of 2017, eight markets in Latin America and the Spanish-speaking Caribbean already had at least one LTE-Advanced network deployed in their territory. Although the delivery of new spectrum allowed some of these launches, it is required to continue cleaning bands such as 700 MHz to increase the coverage of the service.
Most of the LTE-A networks in the region were presented from the second half of 2016, after completing processes for the award of bands such as 700 MHz and 2.5 GHz. Not all spectrum delivered in these bands is "clean" (free of interference from other communications systems) by the occupation of other services, such as broadcasting.
In 2017, LTE-A deployments were announced in the Dominican Republic, Ecuador and Uruguay. These complement those that occurred in 2014 in Puerto Rico and in 2016 in Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Peru. For the first quarter of 2018, the first networks of its kind are expected to be announced in Costa Rica and Mexico.
LTE-A
LTE-Advanced is an evolution of fourth generation (4G) LTE technology. One of its main advantages is that it uses carrier aggregation (CA) to provide higher data transmission speeds, reaching theoretical peak rates of up to 3 Gbps for download and 1.5 Gbps for uploading, according to the white paper LTE to 5G: Cellular and Broadband Innovation, published by 5G Americas.
Getting more spectrum remains a priority for mobile broadband development. Depending on the degree of spectrum occupancy per market, awarding the 700 MHz and 2.5 GHz bands can provide up to an additional 280 MHz for mobile services. Prospects such as the 600 MHz, 2.3 GHz, 3.5 GHz bands and millimeter wave spectrum bands above 24 GHz (mmWave), considered for 5G, will collectively add around 10 GHz of new spectrum.
In Latin America and the Caribbean, there were around 18 LTE-A networks at the end of 2017, and there were at least 22 mobile operators in eight different markets that deployed LTE in the 700 MHz band. Not in all cases service offerings on this band were available at the national level. In markets such as Argentina or Brazil, for example, the spectrum of the digital dividend was allocated, but the spectrum is not fully available for use throughout the national territory.
The conditions that encourage the emergence and expansion of LTE-A networks will lay the foundations for moving towards the next generation of mobile technologies (5G) in Latin America. 5G will be designed to integrate with LTE networks and many 5G features will be rolled out as extensions of LTE-Advanced and LTE-Advanced Pro networks before there is full 5G availability.
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