 | Issue: | Latin America 2015 |
| Article no.: | 9 | |
| Topic: | Latin America’s Tech Revolution: The rise of SDN & NFV By Jorge Bartulos, Regional Business Development Director, Latin America, InfiNet Wireless | |
| Author: | Jorge Bartulos | |
| Title: | Regional Business Development Director, Latin America | |
| Organisation: | InfiNet Wireless | |
| PDF size: | 201KB |
About author
Jorge Bartulos is InfiNet Wireless’ Regional Business Development Director in the Latin American (LATAM) region. Jorge joined InfiNet in May 2014 with an extensive senior commercial and business development background across the region, bringing with him an innovative market vision and strategic approach with vast experience in wireless telecoms solutions and security/defence technologies. Jorge has over 20 years’ experience, having first graduated as a specialist in telecommunications engineering from the McDonnell Douglas Institute in the USA and ORT University in Argentina. He has proven experience expanding the market presence for multinational companies in Central and Latin America (CALA), including at Polaris Wireless, True Position, Smart Bridges-iRURAL, Laser Bit, Marconi, Ericsson and McDonnell Douglas.
Article abstract
More and more countries in Latin America have started to adopt new technologies and invest more money in everything from education to infrastructure. Brazil is the best example of this. Its growth has been accelerated by the 2014 FIFA World Cup and the up-and-coming 2016 Olympic Games, and the millions of people that are expected to crowd the networks. This driving factor, along with the goal of progressing technologically and economically, has encouraged the region to look into adopting new technologies. One of the ways the region is preparing for this is by adopting network virtualisation technology, such as Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Functions Virtualisation (NFV).
Full Article
When compared to other and more ‘developed’ regions of the world, Latin America is lagging behind in the age of technology. Contributing to this divide is the lack of Wi-Fi deployments across Latin America, making it very difficult for people to access the internet as freely and easily as they should be able to.
Spanning an area of over 21 million squared kilometres and 23 countries, it is a bit unfair to class the region in its entirety as ‘underdeveloped’. Some cities, such as Mexico City and Rio de Janeiro, are far more advanced than their rural counterparts. This digital divide between the urban areas of Latin America and rural areas, and more importantly, between richer areas of cities and poorer areas is a major contributing factor to the region’s delayed progression. But as a region that includes two of the world’s fastest growing economies, Brazil and Mexico, this technology gap is beginning to shrink.
According to a Stanford study, Brazil has the fifth largest number of mobile phone and Internet users in the world. These users have generated a technological revolution in the region, with the rapid development of mobile applications leading the way. In turn, this potential for growth has caused major companies to invest in the region.
Companies are investing heavily in a direct presence in the region because they recognise the tremendous growth potential over the years to come. There is no doubt that additional spectrum will be needed by all service providers in order to satisfy future service demands, whether their infrastructures will be 4G or 5G. Using more of the available spectrum below 6 GHz in a more efficient way will fulfil the biggest part of this need, but wireless providers are also fully aware that extra spectrum will need to be available in higher frequency bands, i,e, ten GHz and above. This is the only way anyone can deliver multi-Gbps speeds to end users.
These investments have allowed the region to start cracking its potential and begin bridging the digital divide. More and more countries in the region have started to adopt new technologies and invest more money in everything from education to infrastructure. Brazil is the best example of this. Its growth has been accelerated by the 2014 FIFA World Cup and the up-and-coming 2016 Olympic Games and the millions of people that are expected to crowd the networks.
SDN & NFV
This driving factor, along with the goal of progressing technologically and economically, has encouraged the region to look into adopting new technologies. One of the ways the region is preparing for this is by adopting network virtualisation technology, such as Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Functions Virtualisation (NFV).
Despite both technologies being relatively new to the market, a study by SNS Research predicts NFV and SDN investments on operator networks will reach an estimated US$21 Billion by the end of 2020 and that the worldwide market for NFV will grow from US$181 million in 2013 to US$2.4 billion in 2018.
SDN has the ability to centralize and simplify the network, cutting costs and boosting network performance and availability, while NFV gives service providers the flexibility to consolidate network infrastructure from physical structures on to virtualised servers, thus eliminating the requirement of physical infrastructure and the costs and challenges of building such infrastructure. SNS Research predicts that NFV and SDN models will cut these costs by an estimated US$32 billion by 2020.
While these two technologies work independently of one another, their natural synchronicity makes them very appealing for operators looking to incorporate both elements in order to simplify and centralise their networks. Not only do these technologies have the potential to revolutionise networking, they are very much achievable and everyone from network operators to platform developers can get on board and reap the benefits. To support the massive data consumption expected with this regional growth, technology providers will cater for a huge number of connected devices driving this consumption in the future, and R&D teams are continuously finding new ways to improve spectral efficiency and decrease latency as these will be needed more than ever for mission critical and real-time applications. Low latency requirements translate into establishing strict priorities in the backhaul and transport network, an area it has excelled in over the years.
Making the transition
Many experts believe that NFV and SDN can protect the future economic viability of telcos and that the models are the solution to one of the biggest challenges the industry faces today – the chronic and unsustainable growth in network infrastructure.
Latin America is an untapped market for NFV and SDN. Many countries in this region already launched initiatives to deploy connectivity projects to reduce the digital divide by deploying both telecommunications infrastructure as well as network infrastructure. The challenge posed by this, however, has been determining how to configure this entire infrastructure and track its performance.
Furthermore, with the major carriers monopolising terrestrial fibre infrastructure, other operators are in need of wireless infrastructure immediately in order to break into the market. This lack of infrastructure in place for deploying connectivity further proves the necessity to implement wireless solutions and is why a cloud administration method, such as NFV and SDN is gaining more support.
Rio de Janeiro
Brazil’s capital, Rio de Janeiro, has been the leader of technological advancement in Latin America. As part of a “growth acceleration programme” launched in Brazil aiming to reduce violent crime and improving overall security and personal safety of its citizens across the region, the country’s government is making progressive investments in order to bridge the digital gap between areas of higher and lower economic status.
With the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio fast approaching, the city needs a solution deployable across geographically challenging terrain that normally inhibits regular wireless technology, significantly reduce deployment time and upfront network, provide the local government with the option to overlay communication and data services over the wireless network, and ultimately provide future-proof scalability for security and public services in preparation for the Games.
We recently worked with the Brazilian government to help provide a solution that will be capable of supporting additional networking and communications services for the Olympics. It has been extremely challenging to juggle both the deployment of the required infrastructure and the time in which to administrate everything smoothly.
Challenges
Why? Although SDN and NFV seem like the obvious and best solution for Latin America’s connectivity problems, launching any new and complex technology and re-designing entire networks will come with its challenges.
Along with being time-consuming and expensive (even if it is quicker and cheaper than traditional methods of a wired infrastructure), a main challenge is the lack of licensed frequencies. This has caused operators and companies to turn to license-free frequencies which have caused disorder and congestion.
Another issue is that SDN is lacking interoperability. This is due to the lack of standardisation in different technologies and hardware available and has continued to present numerous challenges to telcos.
What needs to be done?
The infrastructures currently being deployed (or planning to be deployed) in the near future will require various backbone and access platforms in order to complement the existing wired infrastructures.
Whatever happens in the region, a higher capacity, lower latency, better spectral efficiency and overall performance will become essential for connecting all the new devices we are likely to see used in the area. This can only be achieved via new platforms like advanced multi-antenna transmissions, tighter multi-site coordination and extensive densification of networks.
I expect and predict that SDN and NFV will be increasingly adopted by operators of all types to help them become more responsive to increasing and continuously changing demands from their customers. Future services will be delivered via a number of different access technologies and multi-layer networks that need to be both dynamic and scalable.
Looking to the future
Latin America is definitely on the right path to keep up with the booming wireless and SDN deployments- in large cities at least. Unfortunately, the reality is that small cities and rural areas will continue to be far behind their urban counterparts for the foreseeable future.
If other Latin American cities take a cue from Rio, I am very optimistic the region will advance at a much quicker rate, bridging the digital divide and joining more connected regions as technology leaders.
Sources:
Stanford University, 2010-2011 <http://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/cs181/projects/2010-11/TechnologyTrendsLatinAmerica/index-2.html>
SNS Research, 2013 <http://www.snstelecom.com/the-sdn-nfv-network-virtualization-bible>
