"We will go from being buyers to being internet providers". The phrase was repeated interchangeably by the Minister of Industry, Energy and Mining, Carolina Cosse, and the president of ANTEL, Andrés Tolosa, after the arrival of the submarine fiber optic cable on August 18.
In that instance, Tolosa explained that they had already held talks with other countries, in the search for interested parties in the new capacity acquired.
Last Thursday, ANTEL's president informed that the company is preparing the ground, through companies in other countries, to be able to sell internet capacity.
"We have already created a company in Brazil, we already had one in the United States and we are finishing the formation of the company in Argentina to be able to sell that capacity of the submarine cable in the international market," said Tolosa, interviewed by the program Pisando fuerte of radio Metrópolis.
"Now we are going to start to get more participation because we are going to have the possibility of selling capacity of our submarine cable to Argentina, Brazil or through those countries in Chile, Paraguay, Bolivia," he added.
According to the director of ANTEL for the National Party, Gustavo Delgado, "these are not companies in the full sense", but legal entities that will allow the commercialization of services in the future. "This is necessary to make product placement viable, but it is not the installation of a company as such, in the sense of setting up offices and all that," he added.
ANTEL has had such an entity in the United States for years, called ANTEL Inc. The company created in Brazil is more recent, while in Argentina it is still in process.
Tolosa explained that ANTEL, being a state-owned company, "is limited by the national budget," which "severely limits" the possibilities of investment in international markets, which are more demanding than the Uruguayan market.
"That is why we are looking for partnerships with other companies abroad, so that investments are made by these other companies and ANTEL is supporting the management," he said.
Trained to sell
ANTEL owns two fiber optic pairs of the Tannat cable, which connects Montevideo and the city of Santos in Brazil. From there, another cable (the Monet) extends to the United States. In that route, ANTEL owns a pair of fibers.
Monet's capacity is 60 terabits per second, while Tannat has a capacity of 90 terabits per second. That leaves the state-owned company with a transmission capacity of 40 terabits per second, far exceeding Uruguay's domestic demand.
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