INTERVIEW: Argentina’s mobile operators must focus on developing 4G and regard 5G as a technology very much “for the future”, Martin Wessel, Telecom Personal Argentina’s head of technology evolution, told Mobile World Live.

Speaking at the recent M360 LatAm event in Bogota, Colombia, Wessel (pictured, right) said he did not consider 5G as something which will come to the country in the near future, because “we still have to do a lot of work in 4G and we are focused on that”.

Telecom Argentina Personal is the country’s second largest operator: GSMA Intelligence predicts the operator will end Q4 2017 with 20.2 million connections.

The company lags just behind America Movil’s Claro (23.3 million connections forecast) and just ahead of Telefonica’s Movistar (20.7 million).

Wessel said the three operators share roughly equal parts of the market, while 60 per cent of its own customers now have access to a 4G service.

While warning 5G was some way off, he added the company’s work in virtualising its core and replacing its access network towards a software defined infrastructure for 2G, 3G and 4G would all be helpful on the road to 5G, when it eventually comes around.

In the interview, he also explained Argentina’s status with regards to IoT development.

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