Chilean operator group Entel has earmarked an investment fund of US$371 million for 2020.
Of this total, US$264 million will go towards domestic operations, with its Peruvian subsidiary receiving US$105 million and the remaining $2 million spent on improving its call centres across both markets.
Entel president Juan Hurtado said that over US$100 million of the Chilean investment would be spent on improving the 4G capacity and coverage of Entel’s mobile unit. Additionally, the group was eyeing the “possible initial deployment of the 5G network towards the end of this year, depending on when the public tender is completed.”
Under these plans, Entel would invest US$67 million into its domestic offering, with the majority of this funding the rollout of fibre optic infrastructure. The group would spend US$50 million on enterprise services such as big data, cloud, cybersecurity and IoT.
Entel will also expand coverage in Peru with an investment of US$70 million to boost its 4G network capacity. Additionally, it has earmarked US$8 million for improving its fixed enterprise offering.
The group’s general manager Antonio Buchi noted that high demand for telecoms services during the Covid-19 pandemic “makes [Entel] very resistant to complex scenarios like this, even more so with all the needs that now arise from connectivity in the whole of society.”
“Without technology, today our health system would not be working, nor could we be working, studying or informing ourselves as we are doing. We are doing everything to ensure a normal operation”, he added.
