Ricardo Diaz has worked in international telecoms for over 20 years, focusing on Latin America since 2000. Ricardo moved from core networks to the asset side of telecoms when he joined Kentrox two years ago, helping this internationally renowned market leading Intelligent Site Management (ISM) provider enter new markets in the Caribbean and Latin America. TowerXchange interviewed Kentrox’s Managing Director for MEA a year ago, so we wanted to compare Kentrox’s experiences in the Americas with those in Africa and to discuss the company’s acquisition by Westell.
TowerXchange: It’s been a year since we last spoke to Kentrox, during which time the company has been acquired by Westell. What were the drivers behind that acquisition and what are the benefits?
Ricardo Diaz, VP of Latin America, Westell Technologies:
Kentrox’s acquisition by Westell has been very positive - the two companies have a complementary suite of products, so it’s been a coherent merger with substantial benefits for everyone.
Our intelligent site management (ISM) solution retains the Kentrox brand. As a global market leader, the Kentrox intelligent site management capabilities complement Westell’s RF signal performance, distributed antenna systems (DAS), and outside plant solutions which include intelligent enclosures, DAS interface panels, Ethernet connectivity, and tower mounted amplifiers.
The merger has enabled accelerated development for the ISM solution offering. For example, our customers were asking for the capability to access the Kentrox Optima Management System® through their native iOS (iPads and iPhones) and Android devices. We were able to make that a priority and have an app ready and available for download very quickly with quality development. While the two companies had a similar customer base among tier one and tier two carriers and towercos, our contacts within these organisations were often different. The merger has enabled us to open up to new people and regions, expanding ISM to Westell customers who had not previously been aware of our intelligent site management capabilities.
TowerXchange: When we were looking at the African market, we heard reports that many telecom towers’ remote monitoring alarms were not functioning, or not installed at all. It seemed that a relatively small proportion of sites had carrier-grade RMS and ISM systems. How does the current state of site monitoring compare in South and Central America?
Ricardo Diaz, VP of Latin America, Westell Technologies:
The use of intelligent site management in Latin America is quite country dependent. Some countries still have many old, legacy sites, the majority of which are not monitored due to focusing on buying and building new assets.
With the rapid growth of tower infrastructure in Brazil, for example, many of the newer sites have equipment with built-in proprietary management systems and controllers. The NOC may receive some alarms, but management systems aren’t coherent. They might not be able to tell whether an outage is due to equipment failure or theft, which slows their field maintenance team’s ability to restore the site swiftly.
many of the newer sites have equipment with built-in proprietary management systems and controllers. The NOC may receive some alarms, but management systems aren’t coherent. They might not be able to tell whether an outage is due to equipment failure or theft
One of the key benefits of ISM is to unify the management of information from multiple sources, drawing together data from all the different elements that make a site work efficiently, and when issues do exist, to provide the relevant data to see exactly where the issues reside. This ultimately improves technician efficiency and network availability.
TowerXchange: What are the typical pain points that motivate Latin American carriers and towercos to invest in ISM?
Ricardo Diaz, VP of Latin America, Westell Technologies:
There are a broad range of pain points and requirements depending on the Latin American country.
In Mexico, there are typically two major pains. Firstly, site security. Vandalism, copper theft and battery theft are big problems, as is battery management in general because battery replacement costs are very high.
Brazil is a tremendously fast growing market for us. With the rapid growth of independent towercos, their focus is currently on getting major contracts in place, rather than on intelligently managing sites. Security and power will become big problems because energy is expensive and higher tariffs are charged at premium times of day. There is an incentive to optimise power consumption to minimise energy costs.
In Argentina and Paraguay, fuel theft is a major problem, and fuel is quite expensive, prompting local tower operators to consider ISM for fuel management. In the Andean region, security, access control, and the ability to monitor sites and move from reactive to just in time maintenance are major drivers.
Finally, in the Caribbean, ISM provides visibility into cell sites that can extend mean time before failure (MTBF) and avoid lengthy and costly trips between islands.
TowerXchange: Is grid power generally reliable in Latin America?
Ricardo Diaz, VP of Latin America, Westell Technologies:
The power grid is relatively stable in most countries. In some countries, such as Colombia, tower operators may lose one phase of power, so power quality can be an issue. They need to monitor power to react quickly and switch to backup generators when necessary.
TowerXchange: Can you give us some examples of Westell’s client engagements in Latin America?
Ricardo Diaz, VP of Latin America, Westell Technologies:
One major towerco, who prefers we didn’t name them, uses our ISM solution in multiple countries to handle several applications such as power, environmental, and security management.
We’re also working with several of the region’s leading carriers. For example, America Movil’s local operating company, Claro Argentina, uses our intelligent site management solution primarily to monitor and manage generators, fuel consumption and power. America Movil has different pain points in different countries - it might be security in one country and legislative requirements in others, for example in Mexico where the regulator is mandating infrastructure sharing.
TowerXchange: What are the typical Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that define maintenance regimes and Service Level Agreements (SLAs) for carriers and towercos in Latin America?
Ricardo Diaz, VP of Latin America, Westell Technologies:
There are different internal KPIs for every operator, but every operator measures O&M costs, such as repair costs, battery replacements, vandalism and theft.
There may also be legislative and contractual KPIs. For example, towercos have stringent SLAs with their tenants which mean they need ISM to report KPIs to their clients. In other cases, the government might keep a close watch on operator performance, issuing fines for substandard performance, so ISM can help carriers get up to par.
TowerXchange: Finally, please sum up the differentiators that separate Kentrox from other ISM and RMS vendors when responding to RFPs.
Ricardo Diaz, VP of Latin America, Westell Technologies:
The Kentrox intelligent site management solution can integrate and correlate all requirements and data into a unified management platform. Many management systems lose visibility of a site when the connection is lost. We have redundancies in place and can manage a site autonomously until the connection is re-established.
We have a network of local partners in Latin America for installation services and support. For example, we work with Lemcon Americas, Planex Technologies, TCRP and GBM among others.
As the market leader, everyone knows the Kentrox intelligent site management solution. We can provide many important benefits to customers, such as reducing operating costs, minimising energy consumption, improving site security, and very importantly, enhancing network quality and availability. Now that we are integrated into Westell, we have an expanded yet complementary solution portfolio to enable us to provide a strong and compelling response to any RFP.
