Today’s Latin American (LATAM) telecommunications markets are amongst the fastest growing fiber broadband markets in the world. Dell’Oro Group reported that LATAM service providers invested $1.3 billion in PON equipment last year, up from $1.2 billion in 2021 and more than double the $572 million they spent in 2019. Analyst firm Omdia has forecasted that the number of fiber subscribers in the region will climb from nearly 54 million in 2022 to more than 91 million by the end of 2027. As seen across the globe, this projected growth is mostly due to increasing demand for high-speed internet access, driven by remote work, e-commerce, and digital transformation across industries. So, with accelerating growth and competition, how can telcos win the race to the top of the hottest fiber market in the world?
For fiber, at the heart of any successful network roll out is superior network planning, testing, and site management. Here is a quick overview of the essential tools for an efficient fiber network rollout.
1. Network Planning
The importance of network planning cannot be overstated. First, it is critical to meeting your business objectives, but it also ensures that every network element is suitable for the anticipated bandwidth demands and use cases that will be launched. This is particularly important as telcos in LATAM accelerate their FTTH deployment plans, and speed and accuracy of network planning, engineering and operating are in equal demand. GIS is an essential tool for next generation network planning platforms, as it provides crucial geospatial insights, improves workflow efficiency, reduces errors, enhances productivity, and supports network operations. GIS visualization enables operations teams to make customer-centric decisions, have detailed service coverage maps, and can automate the location-centric monitoring of IoT. In-depth analytics capabilities in network planning also empower operations teams to calculate important network impact assessments and run RAN and transmission network analysis, for example.
2. Network Testing
Next generation network testing tools provide service providers with the capabilities to improve network reliability and performance, accelerate time to revenue for new services, minimize truck rolls, and increase customer satisfaction. Network testing not only enables fiber provisioning by testing lines prior to customer install and after network expansion, but it also enables customer service and field repair teams to rapidly identify and locate faults that impact FTTH, FTTP, and FTTB services and ensure that the right technician is dispatched to the right location for repairs. This helps to streamline network maintenance while also minimizing truck rolls by 20-30%, reducing repeat dispatches by 10%, and helping service providers lower their operational costs. Automation is key for network testing tools, particularly when used for batch testing for rapid provisioning, dispatch queue, and repair completion.
3. Site management
Next generation site management tools are essential to ensure the seamless acquisition, setup, and maintenance of new and existing sites. By ensuring that all site inventory information, such as site contracts, civil works infrastructure, passive equipment, point of contact, and site-related information and documentation, is available in a centralized repository, teams can conduct audits, maintenance and repairs, support contractual and SLA compliance via site environmental management, and support the planning, implementation and operation of site backhaul services to aggregation points. What’s more, a comprehensive site management tool ensures the efficient setup and maintenance of your sites by enabling service providers to automate several site management processes and support their operator-specific rollout workflows and status management processes.
Learn More
LATAM operators are in the race of a generation where advanced network planning, testing, and site management solutions will be the key to success. For decades, service providers across the globe, such as Windstream and Bouygues Telecom have relied on Enghouse’s solutions to support their fiber buildouts. Contact us today for more information about Enghouse’s network planning, network testing, and site management solutions and to schedule your personal demo.
