Argentina’s telecoms regulator Enacom has approved extra financing to finish a project undertaken by Argentinian state-owned telecommunications company Arsat to increase the capacity of its fibre optic network.
The sum, about US$1.56 million, will be used to complete a programme approved in 2020. There will also be a six-month extension of the project execution period.
According to the BNamericas news service, the original ARS3 billion (about US$3.13 million) project was meant to increase the capacity of the network links to 200Gbps of data transmission speed, expand the existing 40Gbps aggregation channels in the dense wavelength-division multiplexing (DWDM) network and update the backbone of the Refefo (Red Federal de Fibra Óptica / Federal Fibre Optic Network) to support the new projected capacity by replacing 10G interfaces with 100G ones.
The project was due to be finished within 24 months by late 2022. That hasn’t happened and the deadlines have been extended more than once.
BNamericas says the funds approved this month cover outstanding balances for the project, remaining purchase orders and possible exchange rate differences. Some of the money may also go towards a comprehensive audit of fulfilment of the project objectives.
As we have reported in these pages, Refefo was launched in 2010 as a network able to serve both public institutions and retail ICT service providers. It would, the government hoped, bridge the digital divide between large urban centres and smaller towns throughout the country. Arsat today reportedly has a 34,500 kilometre fibre optic network.
