America Movil Launches 5G in 18 Mexican Cities

After having to recurrently push back its intended launch date, after February 28th America Movil will finally be able broadcast its 5G technology network in 18 cities throughout the Mexican Federation, announced business tycoon Carlos Slim in a news conference. Throughout 2022, the telecommunications giant plans to invest an additional US$1.8 billion to capture the market potential of a swelling Latin American market.  

"This launch is the most important infrastructure deployment in Latin America [as] 5G will be a market enhancer, the most important empowerment tool for the next few years for companies, [and] people,” said Carlos Slim, Chairman of the Board of Directors, America Movil.

Its subsidiary Telcel will be managing its initial kickoff in Mexico’s most prominent urban centers, including Mexico City, Monterrey and Guadalajara, connecting an estimated 40 million people to the company’s network. From these urban centers the company looks to expand its network to 120 additional Mexican cities by the end of the year. From there the company anticipates it will spend an additional US$1.8 billion to fund its intended horizontal expansion into other Latin American countries including Brazil, the region’s largest economy, and Colombia. 

Telcel shared that its network capacity was built and is being supported by Ericson equipment in the northern part of Mexico and Huawei technologies in the south. According to Reuters, Huawei has limited operability in northern Mexico due to political concerns from the US government. Moreover, Mexico’s aviation sector will not be affected by the network’s launch because Telcel’s network operates at a different frequency band than its northern neighbor’s, said Telcel spokesman Renato Flores. 

Overall, this deployment promises to give way to an added layer of cross-industrial dynamism, increase competitiveness and contribute to a multi-billion-dollar growth. In particular, Mexico’s industrial manufacturing sector stands to gain significant benefits from the potential of IoT interoperability. Early projections anticipate 5G will catapult Mexico’s digital transformation and add between US$48 billion and US$68 billion to the national GDP over the next ten years, according to Cisco Latin America, as reported by MBN. 

"This new technology will change the way we live, work, learn, interact and have fun," said Daniel Hajj, Chief Executive,  Chief Executive Daniel Hajj said.