Uruguayan state-owned national telecoms operator Administracion Nacional de Telecomunicaciones (Antel) plans to invest around USD140 million in its fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) network this year, following on from the USD110 million spent on the infrastructure in the two years to end-2012. Local news paper El Pais cites Antel’s president Carolina Cosse as saying that the FTTH project passes around 418,000 households, 111,000 of which are already connected to the network. The company, which holds a monopoly on the provision of fixed line services in Uruguay, expects the network to cover around 25% of homes in the country by the end of this year. Services are marketed under the brand ‘Vera’, with plans for residential users ranging in price from UYU690 (USD33.8) per month for a basic 2Mbps downstream connection to UYU1,590 for the top-end 120Mbps/12Mbps download/upload plan.
TeleGeography’s GlobalComms Database states that China’s ZTE was selected in September 2011 to build Antel’s national FTTH network and the first home was connected to the infrastructure one month later. By the end of 2012 the number of connected households had risen to around 240,000, with rollout ongoing in parts of Montevideo, Atlantida, Colonia, Fray Bentos, Pando, Rivera, Rocha, Salta and San Jose, among other towns and cities.