AT&T completed the launch of its LTE-M network in Mexico following successful pilots in the country in Q3 and the launch of the technology nationwide in the US in mid-2017.

The company said in May, following the launch of LTE-M in the US, it would turn its attentions to Mexico, with the aim of rolling out the low-power IoT network by the end of the year.

In September, AT&T announced it held pilots in Tijuana and Puebla in Q3, as well as completed the first LTE-M international data session between the US and Mexico, which it also believes was “the world’s first international data session on LTE-M”.

When announcing its plans to push its LTE-M rollout to Mexico, the company said it wanted to combine its US and Mexico networks, with the aim of covering 400 million people with the technology.

AT&T said the network in Mexico will support IoT services such as smart cities, asset management, security systems and other capabilities.

LTE-M – also known as category M1 (Cat-M1) – is one of three low power wide area technologies licensed by 3GPP. The other technologies are NB-IoT and EC GSM IoT. US operators are particularly keen on LTE-M, though the technology also notably received backing in Europe from Orange and KPN.

The move comes as part of a broader effort from AT&T to push deeper into Mexico. AT&T is working to build itself up as a competitor for dominant Mexico operators Telefonica and America Movil following its acquisition of smaller providers Iusacell and Nextel Mexico in 2015.

At the time, AT&T committed to spend $3 billion to expand its wireless coverage to 100 million in the country by the close of 2018.