Mexico City - America Movil, the telecom giant controlled by Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim Helú, expects to roll out a 4.5G network in parts of Mexico by the end of 2017 and gear up for 5G by 2020, Daniel Hajj, the company's CEO, said at a news conference in Mexico City last week, according to Reuters and Mexican newspaper Reforma.

"We are going to move from a 4G network to a 4.5G network and then 5G... the 4.5G network will be 7 times faster than the current 4G," Hajj announced.

Hajj explained that 5G capability will boost speeds to 10,000 megabits per second from the current 1,000 and will speed up the time it takes for the Internet to react to less than 5 milliseconds–a fifth of the current rate.

According to The Financial Times, Hajj sketched a future world of geo-localization bracelets that would be able to summon an ambulance immediately if the wearer became ill, and hospitals with access to clinical records held digitally in the cloud.

While declining to give specific investment figures for the 4.5G network, Hajj said that "it's basically thanks to all the investments that we have been making to upgrade the network over the last 3 years."

Carlos Slim Domit, Slim Helu's eldest son and the chairman of America Movil, who co-chaired the press conference, said that America Movil has so far invested around $52 billion in Mexico's telecom sector alone. This, Slim Domit added, has allowed Telcel, America Movil's wireless parent company, to move from the current 4G—which has yet to be available in all of Mexico—to a 4.5G network.