Chile’s telecom regulator Subtel plans to move ahead with its decision not to rural coverage requirements in 5G spectrum tender. For that reason, the telecom regulator is under scrutiny for omitting rural coverage from consumer rights group Conadecus, media reports said.
For the upcoming 5G spectrum auction, the block of 700MHz spectrum is available. It is reported that this spectrum will be especially useful for providing rural coverage in remote areas. According to Chile’s Undersecretary of Telecommunications Pamela Gidi, 54 percent of the country’s population has access to fixed broadband. That said, only a quarter of those are fibre connections.
More recently, the country is underway with its plan to develop transoceanic cable connecting Asia and Latin America. This project will be the country’s first fibre-optic cable project designating Australia and New Zealand as end points. The country has chosen a route proposed by Japan having the submarine fibre optic cable stretch approximately 13,000 kilometres across the Pacific Ocean. Chilean Transport and Telecommunications Undersecretary Pamela Gidi Masías tweeted that “We chose the route that requires a less initial investment, less operating costs, and less technical challenges – that is, less risk. We chose Australia because it is a digital hub in Oceania since it currently has five operational submarine cables that connect to Asia and two in the deployment plan.