The silent work for 5G

The panorama of telecommunications in Latin America is mutating by leaps and bounds. What is surprising is that these changes are taking place silently. While the attention of almost all eyes is focused on the differences that can occur in the world of consumption, it is in the corporate sector, in the legal frameworks and in the design of the transport network ecosystem where the new approach to the business of transporting data.

One of the silent changes to which I refer is the drastic increase in the deployment of fiber optics, not only to connect homes at speeds greater than 1 Gbps, but those that are intended to support the growth of these connection speeds in all the geographies of a country. Here I mean fiber optic deployments that are no longer exclusive of the regional capitals to begin connecting those cities with a smaller population size from Xalapa in Mexico or Bucaramanga in Colombia to Salto in Uruguay or San Pedro de Macorís in the Dominican Republic.

However, the increase in infrastructure density is leading the governments of the region to increase the terrestrial connectivity in areas not previously covered. For example, Brazil has laid around 12,000 km of fluvial fiber optics in the rivers of the Amazon jungle. A connectivity system that allows Brazil to offer capacity services to Amazonian neighbors such as Bolivia and Colombia.

The fiber growth observed in Brazil is replicated in all jurisdictions in the region with countries such as Curaçao, Uruguay or Barbados with a fiber optic capillarity that exceeds 85% of homes. However, these three countries, like the Guianas or Paraguay, also suffer from a disease that negatively impacts the service offer at the local level, the few international exits for your traffic of data.

The increase in the amount of fiber optics is accompanied more slowly by the interest of the vast majority of the countries in the region in increasing the amount of radio spectrum that can be used to offer mobile services. From Guatemala to Ecuador or from Trinidad & Tobago to Jamaica, governments understand the urgency to increase the amount of spectrum radioelectric that is given to mobile operators to offer service.

The problem is not the willingness of the countries to deliver this input, but the amount of money that some governments intend to charge for it. Thus we come across Mexico, a country that boasts of having given constitutional status to the Internet by declaring it a human right but that charges the input to offer this service. at radioactive material prices.

All the good work that the regulator can do in radio spectrum management issues is lost when usage costs are imposed, which have led several operators to return the concessions obtained in past auction processes. Thus, the dichotomy of seeing how the authorities of the Mexican regulator recognize that 5G should be one of the issues on the public agenda of any country occurs, while those of the treasury place a price on the radio spectrum that cancels the interest of many interested in obtain this input to be able to launch services. It could even be said that the next auction in Mexico at most would attract two biddersleaving several blocks empty and guaranteeing the base price as collection.

While this discussion occurs in industry forums or in public consultations that seem to be repeated countless times, beyond terrestrial networks we see that traffic growth forecasts drive an increase in the number of kilometers of submarine fiber optic cables that surround to the region and transponders that orbit the planet earth with satellites of all kinds, the most recent being those of low orbit with business plans that range from the offer of retail services to users who can pay a modem for around US $500 and a monthly payment of US$99 (without VAT) to services to the military forces of the different countries of the region, as they have been doing for months in Ukraine.

As can be seen, the regional obsession is to increase capacity. Being able to have everything necessary on the ground or in space to support the arrival and expansion of 5G networks that promise to bring Latin America and the Caribbean closer to that connected world that has been dreamed of so much.

However, the issue of the devices that will be used by both users and companies does not appear in the vast majority of discussions. If the topic is the Internet of Things, the expert talks would seem to indicate that if not with 5G these devices could not be used to digitize processes and make them more efficient. If the topic is the user, the speakers forget about the scarcity of microprocessors, the regional purchasing power or the real coverage for mobile service of the 28 commercial 5G networks that “exist” in the region.

None of the above is new. Memory makes us see too many parallels between the arrival and takeoff of 5G with what happened twenty years ago with 3G. Device delays, unexpected fallout from revenue spectrum allocation processes, undeliverable promises and an initially debased mobile virtual operator business model, later seen as a savior for network operators – similar to what you hear from private networks in some industry talks.

In the end, 5G will arrive and as in previous generations, the population will eventually end up using the technology. It will arrive asymmetrically, covering markets such as Chile, Puerto Rico or Brazil long before Ecuador, Nicaragua or Haiti.

The question is whether 5G will come along with all the promises it would make it paradigmatic technology. A 5G accompanied by inclusive public policies for the rural segment, a 5G that is committed to with investment in universities and schools for the creation of applications, a 5G that promotes transversality when making public policy decisions on development and economy. Will that be the 5G that arrives in our geographies or simply the one that gives us the highest Internet connection speed?