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| GSM-Americas As the Latin American markets are quickly maturing well beyond the 'gold rush' stage, high level executives from Mobile Network Operators will be at this year's annual GSM >Americas conference to hone their strategies on enhancing profitability in the move to 3G. Organized by Informa Telecoms & Media, this traditional telcos meeting point will be held in Rio de Janeiro, 5-6 December. The mobile telecoms markets of Latin America continue to offer good growth prospects to operators and vendors. Rural population segments remain relatively under-connected in many markets and technology evolution is high on the agenda at many of the region's cellcos. A key theme of the discussions at GSM >Americas will be the new competitive pressures the region's operators face, in particular Mobile Number Portability which has driven customer churn when enforced in other world regions. Attending MNOs will be able to brace themselves for a period of fierce competition with a sharpened focus on smart calculations of customer value, retaining high value users and maximising revenues across the subscriber lifecycle. Operators with confirmed C-level representation at GSM >Americas so far include Movistar Chile, Ancel (Uruguay), Entel PCS (Chile), Telesur (Suriname) and BTC Bahamas. Senior representatives of TIM Brasil, Telecom Personal (Argentina), Claro (Brazil) and Vivo (Brazil) are also confirmed. This year's event, for the first time, makes specific reference to the migration to 3G. This is timely, with a number of MNOs having deployed WCDMA and HSDPA and more poised to do so soon. Movistar Uruguay has ordered WCDMA/HSPA core and radio network solutions to double its system capacity and cut its response times for interactive services. Uruguay's 3G market has the potential to reach 250,000 over the next 18 months representing 10% of the country's estimated 2.5 million cellular subscribers according to a new study by GSM support group 3G Americas, who are leading an Executive Briefing session at the GSM Americas conference. Another South American country opening up to more competition is Suriname, where incumbent fixed and mobile player Telesur is joined by a new offshoot of pan-Caribbean operator Digicel. Telesur CEO Dirk Currie is among the panel of speakers at GSM >Americas and is expected to discuss what the former monopolist telco has been doing to prepare for liberalised market conditions. write your comments about the article :: © 2007 Exhibition News :: home page |