ALTÁN Redes and SCT receive prestigious WITSA Award
5 June, 2018
- The WITSA Global Excellence Award is given to the leading ICT organizations around the world.
- ALTÁN Redes was nominated for its Red Compartida project that will reduce the digital gap in Mexico.
Mexico City, November 7, 2017.- Today Eugenio Galdón, Executive Vice President of ALTÁN Redes and the Secretary of Communications and Transportation,Gerardo Ruiz Esparza, received the ICT Global Excellence Award from the prestigious World Information Technology and Services Alliance (WITSA) for the Red Compartida project.
The WITSA is a leading organization in the global IT industry and brings together a total of 81 industry associations from around the world. The ICT Global Excellence Award that ATLÁN Redes was nominated for comes from the “Digital Opportunity” category and recognizes those who have made both an extraordinary and successful effort to provide new digital opportunities. The award also acknowledges projects and organizations that facilitate the deployment of information technologies, and telecommunications/internet use in both urban populations and rural areas of developing countries.
ALTÁN Redes was nominated for the Red Compartida project by the Mexican National Chamber of the Electronics, Telecommunications and Information Technology Industry (CANIETI). After receiving the award from WITSA President Yvonne Chiu, Mr. Galdón stated that for Red Compartida’s innovative operating model to be successful, it would need to be accompanied by a regulation to oversee its infrastructure.
“Red Compartida needs to be perceived as what it really is: an exclusively wholesale network that provides a universal, continuous, shared and non-discriminatory service to at least 92.2% of the population,” said Mr. Galdón. “We want the regulation to recognize these facts through the appropriate model so that Red Compartida can become a successful, transformative initiative,” he added.
He also stressed that Red Compartida is not the fourth mobile operator, but rather a connectivity and telecommunications infrastructure at the disposal of all operators for the benefit of the citizens of Mexico.
The Red Compartida project – whose main objective is to reduce the digital gap in Mexico – will transform the national telecommunications market. It will open the sector to greater competition, improve accessibility and provide service coverage to 92.2% of the population of Mexico through a modern, wholesale mobile broadband 4.5 G-LTE network.
This will increase access to high-speed and high-capacity telecommunications services and will help to place Mexico at the forefront of digital inclusion strategies.
The goal is for Red Compartida to reach regions that currently lack connectivity and increase both their coverage and the capacity of current and future telecommunications services in Pueblos Mágicos (traditional turism towns), schools, hospitals and marginalized areas.
The ceremony took place at the St. Regis hotel in Mexico City. Among those present were the Communications and Transportation Undersecretary, Édgar Olvera; James Poisant, from WITSA; Rebeca Campizano, from Bancomext; Santiago Gutiérrez, from CANIETI; Luis Fernando Peláez, from the Federal Institute of Telecommunications; Luis Fernando Borjón of Promtel (Telecommunications Investment Promoting Body); and Joaquín Coronado, Executive Board member of ALTÁN Redes.
The award was announced last September at the WITSA Annual Conference in Taipei.
About ALTÁN Redes
ALTÁN Redes, S.A.P.I. de C.V., is a Mexican company formed by the multinational consortium winner of the Red Compartida international competition. Among its investors, it has some of the most important infrastructure investment funds in the world, such as Morgan Stanley Infrastructure, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the China-Mexico Fund (managed by the IFC), the Canadian pension fund (CDP) and the Mexican afores grouped under the CKD IM and FFLatam; as well as with Mexican partners and industrial groups, institutions of great prestige such as Axtel, Megacable, Hansam; and Grupo Multitel as a strategic partner, which gives ALTÁN the ability to comply with all its commitments and to carry out the full deployment of Red Compartida by virtue of the stipulated parameters.
About the Red Compartida
Red Compartida is one of Mexico’s most important telecommunications projects in recent years. It is a modern, mobile wholesale broadband network, neutral and of non-discriminatory type, in the 700 MHz band. It will increase the coverage of the most advanced telecommunications services, 4G-LTE to at least 92.2% of the Mexican population. It is implemented through a Public-Private Partnership signed between ALTÁN Redes, the Telecommunications Investment Promoting Body (Promtel) and Telecommunications of Mexico (Telecomm). The project is completely self-financed with private resources from its shareholders, private financing from its suppliers and by the Mexican development banks.