Second biggest telecom´s US$138.0M to expand 4G grid

Santo Domingo.- TheAltice group, which operates telecoms Orange and Tricom in Dominican Republic, onWednesday said it will invest RD$6.2 billion (US$138.0 million) this year to installnext-generation infrastructure with a fiber optic and mobile convergent networkto provide higher speed broadband to local customers and democratize theservice.

Altice is the country´ssecond biggest telecom, after the Mexico-based Claro.

Altice COO MichelCombres stressed Dominican Republic´s importance for that company in the Caribbeanand Latin America, and their investments in the local market signal their confidencein the country’s development.

Combres spoke in ameeting with journalists and opinion leaders, outgoing country manager AbdelhakimBoubazine and his replacement Martin Roos.

Roos said this year´s investmentwill extend their network to 500 kilometers to connect 200,000 homes with a speedof 100 Mbps, H-D TV and digital voice (triple play) to reach more cities andplaces where that technology isn’t available.

He said the 4G LTE mobilenetwork will also be expand to every city nationwide to complete the nationalcoverage and the expansion of 3G + to cover 90% of the population. “This isabout an increase of 250 new antennas creating the most robust network forsmartphones.”