Uruguay's Antel boasts 5G breakthrough

Uruguayan state telco Antel claims to have become the first carrier in Latin America to make a 5G call on a commercial network.

The achievement was possible due to a partnership with Nokia, its telecom provider. Antel used the 28GHZ millimetric wave (mWave) frequency band.

Brazil, Mexico and Colombia are also mulling an mWave band for 5G use, namely 26GHz.

"We are very proud to be the first operator in Latin America to set a 5G network into commercial service," Antel's head Andrés Tolosa said.

The Finnish equipment supplier completed the installation of the network in the Barra de Manantiales area of Maldonado department, where the first 5G base stations are operational and ready to go into service, Antel said in a statement.

Antel showed the ultra-low latencies and high speeds of 5G to local authorities and reporters at a launch event, using a virtual-reality sports application called penalty kick.

According to the telco, the 5G technology provides connection capacity of up to one million devices per square kilometer, navigating at speeds greater than 1Gbps and ultralow latency.

Uruguay's telecom regulator Ursec is working on a new auction to tender frequencies in the 1.8GHz, 2.5GHz and extended AWS spectrum bands, as well as the 28GHz band.