Colombia’s Ministry of Information Technologies and Communications (Ministerio de Tecnologias de la Informacion y las Comunicaciones, MinTIC) has invited interested parties to register their willingness to participate in the development of 5G pilot projects before 17 March. In its announcement, the request namechecks the health, education, entertainment, industrial and tourism sectors; businesses active in these fields are expected to work alongside the country’s mobile operators to test proto-5G applications.
While 5G activity has been quiet in Colombia to date, TeleGeography notes that the National Spectrum Agency (Agencia Nacional de Espectro, ANE) did stage a public 5G consultation in April 2019, after identifying the bands under consideration for 5G as follows:
· 614MHz-698MHz (‘600MHz’), which has been authorised for mobile use following the country’s analogue switchover, which commenced on 31 December 2019
· 698MHz-806MHz (‘700MHz’), which was successfully auctioned in December 2019 as part of a multi-band spectrum auction
· 3.3GHz-3.8GHz (‘3.5GHz’)
· Various millimetre wave (mmWave) bands, starting with 24.25GHz-27.5GHz.