Uruguayan state-owned telco ANTEL has selected Chinese firm ZTE to provide equipment for the construction of a major GPON fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) network in the country.

ZTE will provide its ZXA10 C300 system to ANTEL, as part of efforts to deliver 100 Mbps broadband services across a range of access architectures (including FTTH, fibre-to-the-building and point-to-point backhaul) to more than 300,000 families and institutions across the country.

ANTEL has a near-total hold on the Uruguayan broadband market, with a 95 per cent share as of June 2010. The deal will be welcome news for ZTE, which (along with its compatriot firm Huawei) is seeing itself locked out of an increasing number of Western markets due to security concerns.

As recently as this morning (October 12th), it was revealed in the British press that Huawei’s long-standing relationship with UK telco BT is being investigated by the British parliament’s intelligence and security committee, causing concerns of a major disruption to the roll-out of fibre broadband in the UK.