Mexico’s rural areas will receive a coverage boost after a recent deal involving satellite backhaul.
Hispasat, the Spanish telecommunications satellite operator, has reached an agreement with Altan La Red Compartida, the shared telecommunications network in Mexico, in order to provide transmission services to expand its mobile network.
The Amazonas 5 satellite will provide Altán Ka band satellite links to connect 65 new Red Compartida base stations. The Red Compartida shared network already provides 4G LTE broadband mobile voice and data service to more than 60 million Mexicans. The company aims to extend these services to another 600,000 people.
This rollout foresees a major increase in the number of base stations in rural areas in the next two years and has recently completed its second stage of development. When the third stage concludes in January 2022, about 70 percent of the Mexican population will be covered. Thanks to the recent agreement, says Hispasat, Altan can speed up the rollout of La Red Compartida in areas lacking coverage where the use of land-based infrastructure would be expensive or difficult.
Hispasat says it has optimised the throughput of the Gilat SkyEdge IIC platform, which operates in the powerful Ka band capacity of the Amazonas 5 satellite, to meet Altan's availability and latency requirements. Hispasat is also offering Altan a comprehensive managed service that includes the satellite equipment and the installation, operation, and maintenance of the service.
Altan's La Red Compartida is a 20-year concession awarded by the Mexican government to Altan Redes that aims for the development of a wholesale, universal, continuous, neutral and non-discriminatory 4G LTE network that will cover 92.2 percent of the Mexican population by 2024. This will include 15 percent coverage in towns of fewer than 10,000 inhabitants.
