A number of recent stories relating to meeting end user demand have emerged from Peru in the course of the week: two relate to congestion, while a third involves providing services where none may have previously been available.
Not surprisingly, Peru has faced a sudden increase in demand for internet services due to the coronavirus pandemic. The Ministry of Transport and Communications (MTC) has responded by announcing that the country’s National Fibre Optic Backbone will be used to carry data traffic from public institutions to relieve congestion on other networks.
Local press reports also say that, like governments in a number of other countries faced with high demand, the Peruvian government has empowered the MTC to grant temporary spectrum concessions to operators to ensure service continuity and quality. Rules that bar operators from suspending telecom services for lack of payment have also been extended until 24 May 2020.
Meanwhile, Intelsat, which operates a large satellite fleet and connectivity infrastructure, and Andesat, which operates in the Andean region and provides corporate value-added services to different verticals, are partnering to bring end-to-end mobile broadband services to remote communities across Peru. The two companies have developed a new model that, they say, will quickly and efficiently bring 3G access to 154 rural Peruvian communities in 2020, and as many as 400 remote sites in Peru over the next 18 months.
The model pioneered by Andesat and Intelsat enables the companies to share infrastructure and network-build expenses as well as revenues. In turn, operators only pay for the traffic that their end users consume.
Andesat is using its Rural Mobile Infrastructure Operator (OIMR) license to connect remote sites in Peru, sourcing tower sites, designing and building towers and taking point on equipment for the connectivity initiative. Intelsat is leveraging its scale, infrastructure and expertise to assist Andesat in building out the integrated land space, mobile broadband (3G) infrastructure, bandwidth capacity and service operations to meet evolving end user demand.
