imowi: The First Cooperative Mobile Operator

In Buenos Aires on November 18, CATEL presented the first Cooperative Mobile Operator, which will be the forth Mobile Operator in the country. An entirely new concept in which nucleated cooperatives in CATEL will take part and which will make it possible to sell new convergent quadruple play bundled offers: landline, mobile phone, Internet and TV, in competitive conditions, focusing mainly on small- and medium-sized municipalities of the region, where there is currently a strong presence of these cooperatives that have been offering Telco services for many years and have a large subscriber base. The implementation of the mobile service will make it possible to reach places where they had no presence in the past, and it will be an opportunity for many people to access such an essential service for the first time, considerably reducing the digital divide in Argentina.

CATEL has, on the one hand, a license and mobile numbering granted by the regulator ENACOM, the National Body of Communications in Argentina, to offer mobile telephone services at a national level, and on the on the other hand, an agreement with Telefónica Movistar Argentina to operate on its radio network. This is a special agreement that will make it possible for them to use part of its infrastructure to offer mobile data services through its local networks.

JSC Ingenium will act as CATEL’s technological partner to deploy its infrastructure as a centralized platform of mobile operation – Full Core + BSS 2G/3G/4G – and for the launch and activity of its MVNO. Moreover, JSC Ingenium has been involved with the interconnection of the central node of portabilities and interconnections – via SIP – with the different cooperatives offering landline service at present with the aim of being able to, in a second phase, carry out call terminations through them.

With the launch of imowi in Argentina, JSC Ingenium is broadening its footprint of operative deployment in the Latam region, turning it into the leading mobile technology supplier on the continent.

The service will be operative in April for testing, with user groups that are related the organization, in order to launch to the market in June 2021. The brand name “imowi” comes from combining the distinctive values adopted by the Operator: integration, mobility and Wireless.

In this first phase, the initial group is comprised of: Colsecor – which brings together more than 250 of the country’s cooperatives – and the cooperatives of Del Viso, Monte, Pinamar, Tortuguitas and Villa Gdor. Gálvez.