Chile’s wholesale neutral fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) company On Net Fibra expects to end 2022 with 36,000km of fiber optics deployed, up from the current 32,000km, connecting 15 regions and 180 districts, the company said in a statement.
The company went into operation last July following investment fund KKR’s acquisition of 60% of InfraCo, a subsidiary of Telefónica Chile.
On Net claims to be the first wholesale, carrier-neutral fiber network in Chile, open for other telcos to use and offer their own broadband and fiber optic services to end customers.
The company invested US$100mn in its first seven months of operations, ending 2021 with its network available to roughly 3mn premises, about 50% of Chile’s existing households, it said. The operator now plans to reach 4mn homes in the short term.
On Net had previously projected US$130mn capex for its first 18 months of operations.
Over 60% of its deployments to date have been in Iquique, Alto Hospicio, Vallenar, Ovalle, Osorno, Puerto Montt, Puerto Natales, Punta Arenas and Puerto Porvenir.
“Reaching half of the homes in the country with high-speed access allows us to consolidate our leading position in the deployment of fiber optic networks, with unique potential and competitiveness in the market, so that our current and future customers can use our network and thus focus on delivering their services to homes and companies in Chile,” said CEO José Miguel Torres.
The company also expects to have its networks used to connect antennas and transport data for the 5G networks now being deployed around the country.
The latest official statistics released by market regulator Subtel for end-September show that the Chilean fixed internet market ended the third quarter of 2021 with 4.2mn accesses, up 13.4% year-on-year, of which 53% were fiber connections.
The leading retail fixed broadband company in Chile, VTR, accounted for 29.8% of total accesses at end-September, followed by Telefónica’s Movistar (28.8%) and Mundo (13.5%).
Mundo CEO Enrique Coulembier told BNamericas in September that the company aimed to reach 4mn homes passed with fiber by the end of 2022 – the same target as wholesaler On Net Fibra.
Mundo’s transport network is also offered in the wholesale format for other players to connect and deploy their own last-mile connectivity.
Back in September, Coulembier said that more than 10 other carriers were using Mundo’s network. On Net Fibra does not report how many contracts it has.
