The Chilean regulator Subtel has confirmed that 5G rollout is to go ahead. The country’s Comptroller's Office has approved decrees that authorize the commercial deployment of 5G throughout the country – in at least some bands.
This, it seems, is a formal acknowledgement of the successful bids of the companies that were awarded spectrum in the low and medium bands in the 5G public tender held at the beginning of the year. More importantly, it gives a green light to the network deployment process.
This applies to the companies that were awarded the tender for the 5G network in the 700MHz band (AWS and WOM) and 3.5GHz band (Entel, Movistar and WOM). As TeleGeography's CommsUpdate reports, awards for spectrum in the 26GHz band are still awaiting approval.
The Minister of Transport and Telecommunications, Gloria Hutt, said that Chile has been a pioneer in Latin America, “being the first country to tender for spectrum with national coverage for this high-speed mobile network”.
Initial coverage is expected to include 90 percent of the population, all public hospitals, 9,170 kilometres of roads, 80 areas of what are called 'social and productive interest', such as airports, ports, and academic and research centres, and all regional and provincial capitals.
According to news reports it is estimated that some 68,000 jobs will be generated from the rollout.
