Mexico’s Federal Telecommunications Institute (IFT) makes 600MHz band available for 5G services-AT&T or Telcel?
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In October 2018, after relocating more than 200 TV channels, Mexico’s Federal Telecommunications Institute (IFT) approved the relocation of the last two TV channels that transmitted in the 600MHz band in order to free it up for 5G broadband services. In doing so, Mexico became the first country to finish implementing this transition and liberate the 600MHz band.
This transition will enable Mexico to make the 600MHz band available to the market through a bidding process and exploit international mobile telecoms (IMT) applications for 5G mobile broadband services. It is anticipated that the 600MHz band auction will be launched in 2020 so that the deployment of the network can commence in 2021.
Mexico had already successfully switched off the 700MHz band for analogue TV in November 2015. In such band, the government implemented the Red Compartida (or Shared Network) project through a public-private partnership in order to:
- provide broadband in areas that lacked coverage;
- improve service quality;
- reduce the price of mobile services;
- promote competitiveness; and
- improve digital service innovation.
The auction was won by Altán Redes, a new joint venture responsible for the design, implementation, operation and maintenance of the Red Compartida.
In addition, in 2018 the IFT conducted a bidding procedure in which it allocated 120MHz of the 2.5GHz band in favour of AT&T and Telefonica.
In light of the above, Mexico has allocated 584MHz to IMT, which represents 44.9% of the International Telecommunications Unit recommended spectrum allocation for 2015.
With the future auction of the 600MHz band, the IFT will take the lead in providing more spectrum for telephony and 5G mobile internet services. This is in line with the spectral policy, which has allocated more than double the amount of spectrum to the market over the past five years, resulting in greater benefits for Mexican users.
In addition, the IFT is considering using the 3.3GHz to 3.6GHz band for 5G technology, as some companies are already using this band for such purposes.
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With this, Mexico becomes the first country in the world to completely dislodge the frequencies from 614 to 698 Mhz to start testing the 5G network.
AT&T will likely be the first operator to deploy its 5G network in Mexicoo (at some point next year). Telcel would follow closely with the launch of its own technology a year later, in 2020 . The reality is that there is still a lot of work to be done , but apparently Mexico is on the right track.
In Xataka Mexico | 5G, everything you need to know about the new generation of mobile networks
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