Tommi Uitto, president of Mobile Networks at Nokia (pictured), hinted traction for traditional radio equipment was not waning in the face of growing open RAN deployments, revealing AT&T Mexico as the 35th new customer signed up by the vendor since 2019.

In a Twitter post, Uitto also explained a total of 61 existing customers had expanded their use of Nokia RAN equipment over the same period and highlighted the fact the vendor is also a supplier to AT&T in the US.

Uitto was responding to a deal to provide Nokia’s 5G AirScale RAN equipment for AT&T Mexico’s 5G Innovation Lab, one of a number of facilities the US-based operator runs exploring next-generation use cases and technologies.

In a statement, Nokia noted its deal with AT&T Mexico also involved providing “connectivity for 3G and 4G” services on the same RAN hardware: Uitto commented this will act as a base for the “operator’s 5G evolution”.

Nokia cited joint research conducted with analyst company Omdia indicating a potential $730 billion-worth of “social and economic output” benefits from 5G deployments in Mexico.

And in a blog last month Pau Castells, head of economic analysis at GSMA Intelligence, noted its research pointed to a willingness among consumers in Latin America as whole to pay more for 5G services, but questioned if this would be sufficient to justify heavy investment in the technology.