Chile recorded more mobile phones than people
The Chilean government’s INE statistics institute has unveiled that there are more cell phones in Chile than there are people.
With 19.4 million cell phones distributed across the Andean nation as of October, there were nearly 1.1 cell phones for each of Chile’s estimated 17.1 million citizens.
According to INE, highlighting the explosion in cell phone penetration, in 2006 there were only 11.9 million cell phones for Chile’s then 16.4 million population. Between 2000 and 2009, Chileans made 94.5 billion domestic calls on their cell phones, racking up 126.7 billion minutes, and 264 million international calls, for some 788 million minutes. Meanwhile, Chileans are expected to make 3.87 million local landline phone calls this year, totaling 8.93 million minutes, up from 6.84 million calls and 14.8 million minutes totaled in 1998.
For the first 10 months of the year, Chileans made 430 million domestic calls and 32 million international calls on landlines. While, in 2009 Chileans made 62,278 calls on public pay phones, totaling 59,131 minutes, compared to 114,518 calls made in 2004 for 136,915 minutes.
The local unit of Spain’s Telefonica Moviles SA, Movistar, is the country’s largest cell provider with Entel PCS, a unit of Entel coming in second. Claro, owned by Mexico’s America Movil is third, and Nextel holds a minority stake in the local wireless phone service market.
Entel PCS & Ericsson complete LTE trial in Chile
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Trial of the first LTE has been successfully completed by Mobile operator Entel PCS in Chile. This is also the first LTE field trial rolled out in Latin America.
The field tests were developed in partnership with Ericsson. Entel PCS and Ericsson have demonstrated the first internet connection through LTE technology, launched on December 29, 2009.
Demonstration of first internet connection through LTE technology in a field trial has also been made by the two companies using a network configuration similar to that of a usual site.
Entel PCS awards Ericsson HSPA deal
Chilean wireless operator Entel PCS has awarded Ericsson a contract to provide 2G and 3G W-CDMA core and radio networks, including mobile softswitches and HSPA. Ericsson will have the prime-integrator role and will provide network deployment, systems integration and business consulting services. The HSPA solution will enable Entel to deliver broadband speeds of up to 3.6Mbps, allow it to more than double system capacity and cut down response times for interactive services. On average, users will be able to download 20 times faster than with a GSM/GPRS connection.
According to TeleGeography’s GlobalComms database, Entel PCS launched GSM services in 1998 and added GPRS services to its portfolio in October 2001 at a cost of USD20 million, proclaiming the technology a stepping stone to the introduction of 3G. GPRS was initially only available in the Metropolitan Region and the lucrative Region V, before expanding nationwide. In 2004 parent telco Entel Chile invested USD100 million in its wireless arm, much of it in developing new value added services, including mobile TV-over-GPRS, launched in partnership with the Channel 13 network in March. In the same year it deployed an EDGE data platform, which by the end of 2005 covered more than 50% of the population, including the whole of the Metropolitan Region and Region V.
