AT&T Mexico announced that it has started the deployment of its 5G network in the country. In a progressive way, starting in industrial and urban areas, the telecommunications company inaugurates its 5G network in the country while continuing to operate its 3G and 4G networks.

This decade will be marked by 5G, a mobile technology that will increase connection speed, reduce latency and multiply the number of connected devices. Along this path, the giant has already connected the first 50 mobile devices to the network.

‘In the next three years we will deploy 5G in the main markets of the country, starting with the most important cities. With this we seek to contribute to the development of an ecosystem that accelerates the use of these technologies, for Mexico and other emerging economies, ” said Nicole Rodríguez, Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at AT&T Mexico.

In addition, they launched a new 5G laboratory in the country, Nicole highlighted that among the main challenges for 5G to materialize are the radio spectrum, fiber optics and the development of devices. He assured that the network is nothing if there are no devices that use it. Which will take time. That is why the development of these is essential to have equipment and chips that can participate in new technologies.

The carrier is currently using spectrum in the 2.5 GHz band. The initial coverage of AT&T’s 5G network is limited to the Cuauhtémoc and the Napoles districts in Mexico City.

With the aim of contributing to the development of a 5G ecosystem that accelerates the use cases that require this new mobile technology, AT&T Mexico also inaugurated its 5G Innovation Laboratory, a space designed to test and validate 5G use cases with collaborators, industry and customers.

“At AT&T Mexico we know that it is essential to boost the country’s developer and entrepreneur ecosystem to enable different use cases while the network is being deployed and we connect more and more Mexicans,” said Sergio Almallo, VP and chief digital marketing officer at AT&T Mexico.

AT&T Mexico also said will work in collaboration with industry, government, universities, startups and large corporations, in the realization of prototypes that use 5G technology to improve business models.

Rival operator America Movil recently said it was ready to launch 5G services in Mexico, without providing a specific timeframe.

“We do everything to be ready for 5G, we still don’t know exactly when we’re going to launch, but we are ready to launch 5G in Mexico. We have a good network,” American Movil’s CEO Daniel Hajj said.

In October, Mexico’s Federal Telecommunications Institute (IFT) has submitted new proposals for 5G spectrum to the country’s Senate. The IFT has proposed reducing the price of spectrum in the bands that have been set aside for 5G use, with the aim of enabling “‘the efficient allocation of radio spectrum for these [5G] services” These bands include the 600MHz, L-band (1500MHz), 3.3 GHz-3.45 GHz and 3.45 GHz-3.6 GHz bands. According to a recent report by the GSMA, 5G technology will represent 14% of mobile connections in Mexico by 2025.