Liberty Puerto Rico plans 3G spectrum refarming for 2022

Liberty Latin America, which has acquired AT&T’s mobile operations in Puerto Rico, is planning to expand its 5G network. 

Part of the expansion is the refarming of 3G spectrum, planned for February 2022 to gain more spectrum, Naji Khoury, Liberty Puerto Rico’s CEO, said during the 5G Caribbean Summit at the Mobile World Congress. 

Khoury said 95% of Puerto Rico’s population is already covered by 5G. But the network has only 10% penetration among customers due to a lack of 5G devices. Yet, the number of 5G customers is rising rapidly. 

The company is building a hurricane-secure network as all its cell sites have battery backup and 90% have power generators. Also, 70% of the fiber network is underground, further protecting from hurricane damage. 

Liberty Puerto Rico is operating the FirstNetemergency response network. 

Khoury said the company was building a virtualized mobile core with Ericsson, distributed among Puerto Rico, Curaçao and Panama. The company has datacenters at two locations, far away from usual hurricane paths. 

When Puerto Rico suffered a blackout on June 10 because of a fire, Liberty’s network remained available. “It was an unwanted test of our network,” said Khoury.