Fibre broadband coming to Colombia

Equipment vendor Alcatel-Lucent has won a key role in the deployment of a national broadband network for Colombia, which will connect 753 municipalities across the South American country and provide millions of Colombians with  TV, video, voice and high-speed data services.

The ‘National Fiber Optic Network from Compartel Program’ is a flagship project from the Ministry of Information Technology and Communication (MINTIC), which aims to increase broadband coverage from 27.2 per cent to 95.5 per cent by 2014.

Local firm Azteca Comunicaciones Colombia is deploying Alcatel-Lucent’s point-to-point fibre broadband access technology and a combination of optical transport and Internet Protocol (IP) routing solutions to provide robust, high-speed video, voice and data connections to multi-tenant buildings, businesses, government offices and individual homes.

Alcatel-Lucent recently shared more details about its Performance Program, announced last July with the intention of shaving €1.25bn of costs and 5,000 jobs by the end of next year.

In addition to a new operating model which sees it focus on (unspecified) core products, the company has unveiled a new business group called Networks & Platforms, which will replace the existing regional operating structure with four global product & services business units, each with full P&L responsibility. All changes are due to come into effect from January 1st, 2013.