Telecall Colombia Turns to Parallel Wireless AI RAN for 5G Build

Telecall Colombia has signed Parallel Wireless to accelerate a national 5G rollout built on AI-based Open RAN, eight months after regulators fined the operator COP7.42 billion — roughly US$1.8 million — for missing obligations attached to its 5G spectrum licence.

The deal, announced Wednesday, covers what Parallel Wireless describes as "thousands of sites" across Colombia. The vendor said its Unity AI Open RAN solution will let Telecall match technology to local conditions: extending high-speed broadband to underserved areas where fibre is limited or absent, and densifying the network in higher-demand locations.

No site count, deployment timeline, coverage target or contract value appears in the announcement. "Thousands of sites" is a vendor framing, not a committed figure.

What is Parallel Wireless actually supplying?

Two platforms sit at the core of the deal. Unity AI, according to the vendor, embeds AI capabilities within the radio access network itself, allowing it to adapt to real-world traffic and RF conditions in real time. GreenRAN pairs that AI-enabled Open RAN with energy-efficient network technologies, which Parallel said will help Telecall scale more cost-effectively while improving spectrum and infrastructure utilisation.

These are vendor claims. Independent performance data for Unity AI in large commercial deployments was not part of the announcement, and neither company published projected energy savings or capacity gains.

Still, the architecture choice fits Telecall's position. As a late entrant building from zero, the operator gains flexibility it could not extract from retrofitting legacy equipment.

Why a greenfield network matters here

Telecall holds a national 3.5-GHz spectrum licence and, in the words of CEO and co-founder Allan Kelman Ajuz, wants to build "a modern, AI-enabled telecoms environment from the ground up" without the constraints of legacy network architecture.

"We have an opportunity to build a new kind of mobile network in Colombia, one designed from the start around innovation, intelligence and the customer experience," Kelman said in a statement. "Our ambition is to connect more people, bring high-quality broadband to communities that have historically been difficult to reach, and create a network that can evolve with the needs of our customers and the country."

The ambitions are broad. Whether the network reaches historically difficult communities depends on execution, and on capital, neither of which the announcement quantifies.

A licence that came with strings attached

The regulatory backdrop sharpens the stakes. Telecall was one of four operators to secure spectrum in Colombia's 5G auction in 2023, a result that marked its entry into the country's mobile market. Entry has not gone smoothly.

In June, Colombia's Ministry of ICT (MinTIC) fined Telecall COP7.42 billion — about US$1.8 million — for failing to meet obligations attached to that 5G licence. The ministry did not disclose in Wednesday's materials whether the penalty has been paid or appealed, and the announcement made no reference to it.

That fine is the concrete context for the Parallel Wireless deal. A penalty for missed rollout obligations gives an operator a pressing commercial reason to speed up deployment — and gives readers a reason to read "acceleration" language carefully.

What comes next

The announcement frames the partnership as the vehicle for Telecall's national ambitions but sets no public milestones: no dates for first sites, no subscriber targets, no coverage percentages. The one hard deadline in Telecall's recent history ran the other way — a fine for obligations unmet.

Watch for MinTIC's next assessment of Telecall's licence compliance; that, more than the vendor's positioning, will show whether this Open RAN buildout is delivering on schedule.