So the greater bandwidth crusade actually worked

Several months ago an online crusade for greater bandwidth in Uruguay made headlines and apparently served as catalyst for the telecom monopoly (Antel) to wake up from its slumber. By the way, it´s not too late to sign the petition on the link above.

Today El País reports that Antel has embarked on a joint venture with Telecom Argentina (Antel 80%, Telecom 20%) whereby they will invest US$17 million in laying a submarine backbone cable linking Uruguay to a place called Las Toninas, in Argentina, which will enable Antel to increase bandwidth between 5 and 32-fold and to reduce prices to users, by 2011.

To be fair to Antel, for such a sparsely populated and unwealthy country, we should not be complaining about our telecom indices. Uruguay´s phone system was 100% digital ahead of any country in Latin America, and the country has always had one of the highest telecom penetration levels.

Personally, I was extremely thankful to find out that the service I used for almost two years was heavily subsidized (satellite internet connection with only 50 users when I subscribed). Before the existence of cellular modems, there was a relatively affordable way to access the Internet in remote locations if your business really required it. But I digress.

The truth is that Uruguayan broadband access (8.4%), although slightly lower than Argentina and Chile´s penetration levels (8.8%) -- which lead in broadband access in Latin America -- is considerably slower and more expensive on this side of the Andes and the River Plate. Hence the crusade. Kudos to them and to all of us who signed the petition!

Of course there may be lots of political considerations behind this, such as the proximity of national elections in late October and the fact that Antel is loosing ground in cellular communications and has struck a deal with the Argentine telco to market its cellular services in a bid to increase market share. But it´s all good, a state monopoly forced to become more competitive in a sector in where it has no competition by a segment in which it does...