Venezuelan mobile operator Digitel announced that its 4G LTE network has reached roughly 100,000 active customers since its commercial launch one year ago, and it has deployed 900 LTE base stations in cities in all regions of the country, according to Telegeography.com on July 21, 2014. Digitel has already invested 600 million USD in the development of its 3G and 4G networks over the last three years, according to executive Luis Bernardo Perez. He added that the company’s biggest challenge is its inability to acquire sufficient volumes of mobile devices due to Venezuela’s foreign exchange controls.

Another publication, Alta Densidad, reported that Digitel’s LTE network coverage now reaches 108 towns and cities in 21 states. It also quoted figures from the company saying that a secondary investment of over 300 million USD is being spent on top of the 500 million USD invested at the end of 2013 in the 3G/4G network. The investment program has included a fully modernized IP-based transmission network linking over 1,500 base stations and fiber-optic infrastructure reaching over 3,000km, which will reach 4,000km by the end of the year. The operator says around 50 percent of its cell sites offer all three technology platforms – 2G, 3G and 4G LTE. The Alta Densidad article quotes Luis Bernardo Perez putting the number of LTE users between 80,000 and 100,000, while also saying that voice-over-LTE (VoLTE) services are in the works.