America Movil not in a hurry to launch 5G in Latin America: CEO

Mexican telecom group America Movil, the telecoms giant controlled by the family of billionaire Carlos Slim, is not expecting to increase capex in Latin America in the next two years because of 5G technology, the company’s CEO Daniel Hajj told a conference call with investors. Hajj said that current investment levels in Latin America are in line with the needs of the domestic markets, and the focus now is on expanding fiber, on 4.5G technology, and on network virtualization. “We are not in a hurry to get 5G in Latin America. What we’re doing right now is to virtualize the network and add much more fiber to the node and some things that we’re going to use in 5G when we decide to launch 5G,” the executive said. America Movil, which operates in Mexico and in most of the countries in Latin America, will initially launch 5G technology in Austria, where it controls local operators Telekom Austria, Hajj said.