Telecom Americas expects to invest between 60 million and 80 million Brazilian Reals on migration to PCS for its four cellular carriers, ATL, Americel, Tess and Telet. For CEO Carlos Henrique Moreira, the key issue at the moment is whether to upgrade the prepaid platform or buy a new one. The existing platform, supplied by Corsair, isn?t ready to accept carrier selection codes, obligatory in PCS. Migration is scheduled for completion early next year.
GSM
Telecom Americas will take delivery of bids from GSM equipment vendors between December 18 and 20. It has invited six vendors to bid: Nokia, Siemens, Alcatel, Nortel, Motorola and Ericsson. As Oi and TIM have already done, Telecom Americas plans to select more than one supplier, building out the network on a regional basis. It hasn?t yet decided how the division will work but expects to choose suppliers by the end of the month. CEO Carlos Henrique Moreira says suppliers haven?t been asked to provide financing. ?We will be negotiating hard on payment terms though,? he adds, recalling that Telecom Americas substantially reduced its debts in 2002 and has enough cash to cover the cost of migration.
500 million dollars in three years
Telecom Americas plans to invest some 500m US Dollars in GSM networks over the next three years, with TDMA overlay accounting for about 60%. The rest will be spent on the new areas for which it has recently won licenses in São Paulo, Paraná-Santa Catarina, and Bahia-Sergipe. It expects to begin offering commercial service in these areas by mid-2003 and has begun negotiations on site sharing with several companies. According to Hilário Calvet, ATL?s network director, the group will have to increase the number of sites by 15%-20% to handle the requirements of GSM subscribers. In large cities, however, more TDMA antennas than normal have been installed because of fast growth in the subscriber base, so fewer new sites will be needed.
