Each Alvis LTE radio base, in 450 MHz with Nokia technology, reaches a footprint of 200,000 hectares for mobile connectivity and 600,000 ha for IoT. Currently, the service is operating in the cities of Venado Tuerto and Chacabuco, in the province of Buenos Aires, where commercial services were launched at the end of 2021. Marcelo Dumanjo, CEO of the company, told Convergencia that the access base exceeds 2,000, under three main use cases: municipalities, agricultural producers with connectivity needs and large customers in agriculture and other verticals.

In the first place, Alvis aimed at disembarking in municipalities, through agreements with the local administration, for coverage in urban and rural areas. After the debut in Venado Tuerto and Chacabuco, talks continue with Pergamino and Junín (in the same province) to replicate the experience.

So far, the deployment in Venado Tuerto has resulted in different variants of public-private integration. At the beginning of August, free Wifi was inaugurated in the first two parks, and another 14 will be progressively added; industrial parks, the local aerodrome and the urban solid waste treatment center of the municipality and private clients of Alvis were also connected. At the same time, the activation in that locality allowed the company to interact with agricultural players: Bayer validated cases of use in real harvest last February; Syngenta contracted services; and there are talks with BASF and the seed breeding company Grupo Don Mario.

The Secretary of Productive Development of the Government of Venado Tuerto, Santiago Meardi, reminded Convergencia about the lack of connectivity in the rural area of the town. It is located in one of the most important seed production poles of the country and an industrial park, while the headquarters of local and international companies are located in the central area of the city. After the deployment, LTE coverage is now 100% of the district, with an extension to small towns in the outskirts of the city. For the implementation, the municipality provided its own antenna (an old TV channel repeater from Rosario), located on the premises of Obras Sanitarias. It is rented to Alvis, which made it technically suitable for this new initiative.

Agro and beyond. A second model described by Alvis is that of groups of agricultural producers, from five to ten in general, who join together to make this type of connectivity viable in their areas of operation. This in turn makes it possible to extend the service to rural schools and health clinics.

Later, larger farms and large farms have been showing interest in LTE in 450 MHz. Dumanjo highlighted the need to cover large areas of countryside to set up digital transformation apps. In a recent presentation by the company at an agricultural trade fair, a case study was presented, with reliable evidence of savings from broadband availability in rural areas: from US$ 15 per hectare per year, up to US$ 55 per hectare per year.

Although Alvis' initial target was in agriculture, it is beginning to explore opportunities in other verticals, such as logistics, security and mining. In the latter case, the role of the provider goes beyond connectivity and would be undertaken hand in hand with Nokia, which has a specific solution for mining and Oil & Gas: in particular, the focus here is on the control of people and equipment. Regarding the potential for private networks, Guillermo Wichmann, Head of Solutions for Southern Cone at Nokia, defined the deployment with Alvis as "an FWA for users." The Finnish company installed a small Core in Argentina for this particular deployment, based on the Nokia Digital Automation Cloud (NDAC) solution: it consists of a pair of simple servers, operating via a private LTE identifier.