Brazilian regulator Anatel unanimously approved the sale of Oi’s mobile unit Oi Movel to a consortium of its former rivals in a vote held on 31^st January.

FreeMove Alliance, the global mobile telecommunications alliance between Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telia and Telecom Italia, and Latin American telecom giant Millicom have announce a major new partnership agreement.

Sigfox, the self-described global 0G network and cloud provider for industrial data, has filed for bankruptcy protection and is seeking a buyer. This is despite having raised over $300 million in venture funding and seemingly being well on the way to building a global IoT communications network.

Rock Connect has selected Nokia to deploy a 4G-LTE Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) network in Jamaica.

Microwave link measurement has taken to the skies of Paraguay  after a recently announced deal involving drones.

IHS Towers, which describes itself as one of the largest independent owners, operators, and developers of shared telecommunications infrastructure in the world by tower count, just got even bigger after a major acquisition in Brazil.

Brazil has one of the largest mobile markets in Latin America due to the sheer size of its population. Healthy competition in the mobile market has helped reduce the price of mobile services in Brazil in recent years and mobile service providers have had much success in converting their customers from prepaid to contract plans.

Uruguay has an advanced telecom market, with excellent infrastructure and one of the highest broadband penetration rates in Latin America. Fixed-line teledensity is also particularly high for the region, while mobile penetration is the second highest after Panama.

Nicaragua is the largest and least densely populated country in Central America. The country’s steady GDP growth since 2010 belies the low economic base, given that it has the lowest GDP per capita in the region, with some 60% of the population living below the poverty line.

Guatemala’s telecom infrastructure has suffered from years of underinvestment from state and provincial governments.

The fixed broadband market is one of the few parts of Costa Rica’s telecom sector to experience solid growth in recent years, both in size and revenue.

One of the smaller countries in Central America, Belize in many respects has closer affinities with English speaking countries of the Caribbean than with its immediate neighbours.

In what we are told is only a temporary measure, Peru’s National Telecommunications Programme (Pronatel), part of the Ministry of Transport and Communications (MTC), has taken over the operation and maintenance of the National Fibre Optic Backbone (RDNFO).

After a fairly lengthy process that seemed to have culminated in a successful sale, Brazilian operator Oi may not be able to sell off its mobile assets after all.

An ambitious Brazilian project that aims to bring broadband connectivity to around a million people in two northern states has now been officially launched.

Chilean telecommunications company Grupo GTD, whose activities include data transmission, network interconnection, internet, mobile telephony, digital television, voice and other communication services, has announced plans to build its second data centre in Peru.

Argentina has joined the market for satellite-supported Internet of Things (IoT) services in agriculture with the launch of its first pico-satellite.

Uruguay’s Ministry of Industry, Energy and Mining confirmed that the long-awaited launch of mobile number portability officially came into force on 12^th January.

Mobile operator Entel Peru has got together with network intelligence and security-as-a-service (SECaaS) solutions provider Allot to protect mobile network users from cyberattacks.

Arsat, Argentina’s state-owned satellite company, is to run a 289 million peso (about $2.8 million) project to provide connectivity for free internet access in towns across the country.

The Utilities Regulation and Competition Authority (URCA) of the Bahamas has floated the possibility of introducing a third player to the market this year in its proposed Annual Plan for 2022.

The new year has seen another multi-country roaming agreement come into effect as residents of Andean Community countries see roaming charges abolished.

El Salvador’s competition watchdog has ruled that the sale of Telefonica’s Movistar and Telefonica Multiservicios units to General International Telecom Limited requires no antitrust authorisation.

Chinese fibre provider Yangtze Optical Fibre and Cable (YOFC) is entering the broadband market in four Peruvian regions. It will use digital enablement expert Alepo’s BSS/OSS solution.

Argentina’s ongoing problem with hyperinflation continues to distort the telecom market’s performance, which shows strong growth in revenue but only modest gains in subscriber numbers each year.

Although El Salvador is the smallest country in central America geographically, it has the fourth largest economy in the region. Economic potential is limited by the relatively small population, while the country’s telecom sector has been restricted by poor infrastructure and unequal income distribution.

Argentina's Camara de Cooperativas de Telecomunicaciones (Chamber of Telecommunications Cooperatives, or Catel) has announced that Imowi, its MVNO service, will launch on 20 January 2022.

A proposed subsea internet cable that would be designed to connect Chile and Australia came closer this week with the appointment by the Chilean government of a partner in the project. 

Responding to what is described as a surge in demand for high-quality fibre broadband services, service provider Digicel, which serves consumer and business customers in 32 markets in the Caribbean, Central America and Pacific, has modernized its FTTx network across the Caribbean Islands.

Chile's telecommunications regulator Subsecretaría de Telecomunicaciones de Chile (Subtel) announced that Movistar (Telefonica), Entel, and WOM have activated their fifth-generation networks in the country around 10 months after acquiring 5G-compatible frequencies.

Brazilian telecommunications operator Algar Telecom has launched a commercial Non-Standalone (NSA) 5G service using its newly acquired 2.3GHz spectrum.

Leading Colombian fibre optic networks service provider Integra Multisolutions (IMS) is to use SES’s satellite-based trunking services to enable it to extend and enhance fibre-like connectivity for Colombian municipalities with fewer than 100,000 inhabitants located out of the reach of terrestrial infrastructure.

Operator AT&T Mexico has announced the start of deployment of its 5G network in the country. It also says it has plans to connect the first 50 mobile devices to the network, in order, it suggests, to test the browsing experience.