Yesterday the  NetNap 2012, organized by Grupo Convergencia, began in the city of Mar del Plata, on the coastline of the province of Buenos Aires. Following the welcome speech delivered by the CEO of Grupo Convergencia, Germán Rodríguez, and the vice-president of Institutional Relations of CABASE, Oscar Messano, the Nap Mar del Plata was inaugurated, it is the tenth that CABASE holds in the country. “Whenever we inaugurate a new Nap it is a delivery to us, but the benefits arise after the entities use it”, explained Patricio Seoane, vice-president of Naps CABASE.

Attending the ribbon cutting ceremony were the representatives of Cotel, Cotelser, Ciberway and Silica Networks, companies and cooperatives which are in the brand-new Nap. “Entering the Nap has provided us with not only lower costs by megabyte but also the large companies started to cut down on their prices. If all small ones gather, we will be able to compete better”, explained Antonio Roncoroni, president of Fecosur.E

The first panel, called “The Argentine Internet market with a new topology”, was opened by Seoane, who explained the impact of the Naps in the country: “with the local, regional and contents traffic of CACHE and associated entities, a 40% of overall traffic can be reached, which used to be paid at a fixed international value but now it is moderate.

The actual average price of Naps members is US$ 50 + VAT by megabyte”. Also, he anticipated that CABASE plans to open nine Naps in 2013 in San Luis, Paraná, Resistencia, Corrientes, Bariloche, Posadas, La Matanza, Comodoro Rivadavia and Olavarría.

At a municipal level. In turn, Renato Rosello, under-secretary of IT and Telecommunications of the Municipality of General Pueyrredón,  told about the administrative modernatization being carried out by the city hall to approach the municipality to the citizen and to speed formalities up. They have deployed a WiMax network at  244 state buildings, including departments, schools and health centers, 220 of which already have interconnextion. “CABASE implementation  in the city is essential since, in order that we may finish the network we need to increase the broadband and the Nap will cause ISP costs to go down”, as asserted by Rosello.

It was also introduced the success case of Cooperative San Martín de los Andes, an entity that was unable to buy more connectivity to provide better service to the community, laid a network of radiolinks of 324 kilometers to get connected with the city of Neuquen, where a Nap lies.

Finally, Hernán Arcidiácono, manager of Development and Management of  IPLAN and coordinator of Nap Buenos Aires, stressed that it will be necessary to replicate the Naps network throughout Latin America, so that most of the content among the countries in the region will not have to travel to the USA. “Should we accomplish multiple points we would be able to support the new Internet, which will be based on contents distribution”, he ended.