HISPASAT, the Spanish telecommunications satellite operator, has reached an agreement with Altán La Red Compartida, the shared telecommunications network in Mexico, in order to provide transmission services to expand its mobile network. The Amazonas 5 satellite will provide Altán Ka band satellite links to connect 65 new base stations of its La Red Compartida. This shared network already provides 4G LTE broadband mobile voice and data service to more than 60 million Mexicans, and the company aims to extend these services to around 600,000 people who will benefit from the 4.5G LTE coverage that Altán's La Red Compartida provides.
This roll out foresees a major increase in the number of base stations in rural areas in the next two years and has recently completed its second stage of development. When the third stage concludes in January 2022, it is estimated that 70% of the Mexican population will be covered. Thanks to the agreement signed with HISPASAT, Altán can speed up the roll out of La Red Compartida in areas lacking coverage where the use of land-based infrastructure would require exorbitant costs or where this option is simply not possible due to difficult terrain.
HISPASAT has optimised the throughput of the Gilat SkyEdge IIC platform, which operates in the powerful Ka band capacity of the Amazonas 5 satellite, to meet Altán's availability and latency requirements. In addition to providing satellite capacity, HISPASAT is offering Altán a comprehensive managed service that includes the satellite equipment and the installation, operation, and maintenance of the service in collaboration with the Mexican systems integrator Elara.
For Ignacio Sanchis, HISPASAT CCO, "this agreement means that the use of Ka band will become consolidated in Mexico for the most demanding satellite backhaul projects for LTE networks, as already happens in other countries, and reaffirms HISPASAT's position in the cellular backhaul vertical, which is highly important in bridging the digital divide in Latin America. We are proud that the high capacity and rapid roll out of our backhaul services contribute to successfully expanding Altán's La Red Compartida and that HISPASAT's satellites make it possible to expand connectivity to areas where telecommunications can be crucial to open new opportunities for economic and social development."
Fernando Bellido, Executive Deployment Director at Altán, stated that "thanks to HISPASAT's complete and resilient cellular backhaul solution, the roll out of our La Red Compartida in the most underserved areas of the Mexico can progress more quickly with the same quality in connectivity services that we offer our clients so that in turn they provide a better browsing experience to end users.
"Cellular backhaul, a highly important vertical in Latin America
The agreement with Altán comes in addition to the new partnerships and contract renewals to provided dedicated satellite capacity to extend the mobile networks in the Americas that HISPASAT has signed in recent months. The operator already offers connectivity to more than 2,500 base stations,distributed across Mexico, the United States, Brazil, Peru, Ecuador and, within just the last few months,in Chile, Colombia and Argentina.
The cellular backhaul services who provide the satellites represent an exciting solution for mobile telecommunications companies that want to extend their connectivity in areas where land-based infrastructure roll out has geographic difficulties or is not viable in economic terms. Thanks to a satellite connection, it is possible to connect remote areas to the global mobile network, thus optimising economic investment and ensuring the capillarity that this type of communications needs.
The implementation of 4G technology and the arrival of 5G will lead to a growth in the demand for these backhaul services. As such, this type of satellite solution is especially ideal for regions like Latin America, home to vast countries, challenging geographic features and less-developed terrestrial communication infrastructures in certain areas. Specifically, market studies predict that the demand for geostationary satellite capacity for backhaul services in the region will increase by 21% between 2018-2028.
A basic telecommunications network to foster development in Mexico
Altán's La Red Compartida is a 20-year concession awarded by the Mexican government to Altán Redes that aims for the development of a wholesale, universal, continuous, neutral and non-discriminatory 4G LTE network that will cover 92.2% of the Mexican population in 2024, including 15% coverage intowns of less than 10,000 inhabitants. This ambitious roll out will contribute, among other things, to bridging the digital divide and making it easier to adopt information technologies in urban and rural areas in order to promote the creation of new telecommunications companies, incentivise greater investments in the sector, promote new digital services such as IoT, and guarantee greater connectivity and higher speed to telecommunications services.