Posted on Thursday, August 23, 2018To start, let me acknowledge the problem: the business case for broadband in emerging markets gets very difficult the further away you get from major economic centers. Thus, Facebook’s experimentation with exotic technologies like this week’s 5G from hovering airships. The challenge is obvious. Emerging markets are often characterized by low average incomes exacerbated by […]
Read More Posted on Tuesday, August 21, 2018The last few weeks have been full of stories about (potential 5G) spectrum, mostly mid-band, some of it positive, some of it controversial. At least we cannot complain that the issue is being ignored (as it often was in the past). Some recent tidbits: Brazilian regulator (Anatel) head, Jaurez Quadros “clarifies” that the 3Ghz band […]
Read More Posted on Tuesday, August 14, 2018The usually well-managed and relatively calm Chilean regulatory scene has exploded over the past few months into open warfare between the operators, the regulator and the courts. The implications for mobile broadband are huge. The opening salvo concerned the 3.5GHz band. On June 20th, 2018, Chilean regulator Subtel suspended the use of this band pending […]
Read More Posted on Thursday, August 09, 2018A new Colombian government was sworn-in on Tuesday and that means a new Minister of ICT, known by its Spanish neologism “MinTic”. She is Sylvia Constaín who has worked for Apple and Facebook. Her full bio appears at the bottom, unofficially translated (by me) from the official MinTic press release. President Iván Duque’s inaugural […]
Read More Posted on Tuesday, August 07, 2018A few weeks ago I wrote about the Colombian government’s sale of its share in Telefonica’s local subsidiary. My conclusion was that this was more than overdue. Now, to no one’s surprise, there is a press report that the government hopes to sell its shares to its partner. This article in Portafolio actually does […]
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