LATAM Telecom

While everyone else impatiently waits for Apple to make up their mind about the iPhone, as reported here before (see here and here ), CTI quietly launched their CORREO MULTIMEDIA CTI (CTI Multimedia Mail), which is a great option for deploying Visual Voice Mail to mass market. Even though the service currently is only available to the postpaid segment, this service is part of the Visual Voice Mail offering that seems to be the buzzword not only in Latin America but worldwide thanks to Apple's iPhone. We expect to hear more from operators regarding this service, as we have mentioned here before , the time for an upgraded version of VOICEMAIL is long due and it took an outsider to reinvent the service.

Not sure what to think of the headline in the Newspaper CLARIN highlighting the success of Instant Messaging in Argentina: "One hundred thousand already chatting in their mobile phone: IM has been in service for more than a year" (loosely translated for my readers that do not read Spanish, link here for those that do). I understand the point they are trying to make but somehow, if the news is that the service has been there for ONE YEAR .... so do people in Argentina actually know about the service ... after one year? Anyway, other than the weird headline (blame the editors!), the article is well written and informative, and covers the efforts by both Movistar Argentina and Telecom Personal. However .... we will discuss their statistics later, it is an interesting topic. As we mentioned here before, Movistar Chile and Argentina were the first to sign an agreement with MSN, leading the region with these services. Movistar, however, launched a WAP version of the service using M...

"2007 was the year 3G services started to become widely available throughout the Americas," remarked 3G Americas President, Chris Pearson. "There is widespread deployment of HSDPA in the US and Canada, and UMTS/HSPA networks are now launched in many markets in Latin America and the Caribbean." Operators in Argentina (Personal, Movistar, CTI Movil), Chile (Entel PCS), Uruguay (Ancel, CTI Movil and Movistar), Paraguay (CTI Movil) and recently, Brazil (Telemig Celular and Claro) announced the launch of their UMTS services this year. A year ago, AT&T Mobility in Puerto Rico became the first operator to launch commercial UMTS services in the Caribbean. Eva Benguigui, Senior Research Analyst Latin America with Informa Telecoms and Media, predicts, "Based on the eleven UMTS/HSPA network launches in Latin America and the Caribbean, and the many more to come in 2008, the number of UMTS/HSPA subscriptions in the region will reach 15.3 million by year end 2009." ...

Latin America's largest groups, Telefonica Movistar and America Movil, have indicated their intentions to put in place the infrastructure necessary to deploy 3G services (see here and here ). This will allow faster access to content and faster downloads, improving access to advanced services. The other pieces of the puzzle should follow, mainly the penetration of capable handsets, “smart phones” with some form of data capability. The question that remains is, are users in Latin America ready for these services? How will operators add new users and make sure they will adopt the new services?

Mexico's America Movil announced recently the commercial launch of advanced third-generation services in several markets early next year ( America Movil Sees 3g Launch 1q 08 ). The group's Argentine subsidiary, mobile operator CTI Movil, launched 3G services in greater Buenos Aires, Rosario and Cordoba, following similar launches earlier this year by rivals Telecom Personal and Movistar ( CTI Movil Launches 3G in Coastal Cities ). CTI’s sister operations in Uruguay and Paraguay will also launch 3G in the near future, in the cities of Colonia and Punta del Este (Uruguay) and Ciudad del Este and Encarnacion (Paraguay).