Here comes the competition.
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Friday January 28, 4:14 pm Eastern Time
Mexico's Unefon sets Feb. 7 wireless telephone launch
MEXICO CITY, Jan 28 (Reuters) - Mexican wireless telephone company Unefon, half-owned by the country's No. 2 broadcaster, TV Azteca (NYSE:TZA - news), said on Friday it would launch its commercial service Feb. 7.
``Unefon is ready to launch commercial service, with all the necessary ingredients for success: state-of-the-art technology, wide distribution, visible publicity and ample financial resources,' Adrian Steckel, chief executive for Unefon, said in a statement.
Unefon has been running tests of its wireless systems dince December.
It aims to operate in Mexico's 20 largest cities by the end of the year, a company statement said.
Steckel said the company had ``more than adequate' resources to construct infrastructure to serve 1.5 million clients. He said Unefon had more than $600 million in funds, including $480 million from Canada's Nortel Networks Corp. (NYSE:NT - news) (Toronto:NT.TO - news), the technology provider for Unefon.
Earlier this week S&P revised its outlook on Azteca to negative from stable, reflecting concern that higher-than-expected capital infusions could be required if the Unefon business plan does not go as expected.
S&P mentioned concerns that resources from TV Azteca could be diverted to Unefon.
Unefon began a publicity blitz in December and previously said it would begin commercial operations in January. Earlier, the company said it would make service available first in the eastern part of Mexico City, the central Mexico city of Toluca and the Pacific beach resort of Acapulco.
Unefon has frequency licenses to provide wireless telephone service throughout Mexico and plans to sell fixed wireless telephone services. Fixed wireless phones are like mobile phones in that voice and data signals are carried over radio waves. But they are stationary and are connected to a small roof antenna. |
