Satellite Wi-Fi will take the Internet to disconnected Mexicans

In Mexico there are 63.9 million Mexicans with Internet access, which means that 56.1 million of the 120 million inhabitants in the country don’t have access to the network.

Although the Red Compartida will provide connectivity to 92.2% of the population by 2024, around 7.8% of the inhabitants will still lack the service.

However, the satellite company ViaSat seeks to offer mobile telephone and internet connection to approximately 6
million Mexicans living in areas where there is no connectivity. “The strategy is to deploy antennas in communities where there is no internet to connect to their satellite ViaSat 2 and provide Wi-Fi to the area”, explained Kevin Cohen, general manager of Consumer Broadband for Latin America of the company.

“The idea is to close the digital gap, and reach the disconnected population. We know that in Mexico there are communities with poor 2G or 3G service, and we want to change that,” he said.

“To provide this coverage, we launched ViaSat 2 in June 2017, which has more than 280 Gbps and offers licensed service in the United States, and now we are looking to deploy other types of services for consumers with lower purchasing power”, he continued.

“This satellite provides service over Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean and that is why we can enter Mexico with this coverage,” he explained.

“We ran tests in 550 communities around Monterrey and saw that there was a market and a way to provide mobile phone service with our technology,” he said. In addition to Monterrey, we have coverage in Baja California, Chihuahua, Sonora, Coahuila, Tamaulipas, Nuevo Leon, Zacatecas and San Luis Potosí. We are already covering about 200,000 Mexicans who did not have internet in their community,” he said.

On April 2018, ViaSat will begin the deployment of its Wi-Fi service in the country.

In Mexico there are only three satellites operating in the orbits 113W, 114.8W and 116W degrees, which represents 0.3% both in records and in satellite possession on a global scale, according to figures from The Competitive Intelligence Unit (CIU).

While the United States has 41.5% of satellite possession and 28.2% of records per satellite country. Brazil and Argentina surpass Mexico, with 0.8% and 1% of satellite possession, respectively.

Source: yucatan.com.mx

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