Movistar Argentina negotiating with miners to install private networks

Movistar is in negotiations with at least three mining companies in Argentina for the installation of private LTE networks.

“We have traveled with clients to show them our mining models in both Peru and Chile,” Florencia Rodríguez, marketing manager at Movistar Empresas, said in response to a question from BNamericas during the IoT Day 2024 event in Buenos Aires.

For reasons of confidentiality, Rodríguez said she could not provide further details of the potential clients.

However, last year, mining company Don Nicolás told BNamericas that it was working with Movistar on the development of an LTE network.

The US$6mn project is expected to be launched this year in the mining company's gold and silver operations in Santa Cruz province.

No private LTE network has yet been installed in Argentina, but the company is confident that the first projects will see the light of day this year. 

“We believe that this delay was due to the fact that they are very high investments and the lack of access to the exchange market also made this difficult, but this year we will definitely be launching,” Rodríguez said.

In Latin America, Movistar has 20 LTE networks. In the mining sector, the company has infrastructure deployed mainly in Chile and Peru. It's clients include miners Las Bambas, Southern Copper, Antamina and Goldfields.

IOT

Rodríguez said that he expects private IoT networks to grow in the coming years, adding that “11% of our digital services come from this vertical [IoT]. We have growth above double digits and today we have more IoT connections than phones in the business area.” 

Movistar Argentina has about 1.5mn IoT devices connected, which represents 25% of the total IoT devices in Spanish-speaking Latin America. “We're the top country in Spanish-speaking Latin America,” he said during his presentation at the event.

Every month around 30,000-50,000 new IoT connections are added, most of which are payment devices. Globally, the company has 41mn IoT connections.