The importance of innovation: from data centres to batteries

With the growing attention on convergence, Vertiv offers its customers across the globe modern solutions such as scalable data centres, Lithium-ion batteries and constant innovation. In this interview, the company’s Telecom Director, Danny Wong, shares insights into why MNOs and towercos are diversifying their traditional business models and how Vertiv can support their expansion and success.

TowerXchange: Please tell us about your company, its global scope and particularly about your footprint in Asia?

Vertiv brings together hardware, software, analytics and services to ensure our customers’ vital applications run continuously, perform optimally and grow with their business needs. We solve the most important challenges facing today’s data centres, communication networks as well as commercial and industrial facilities with a portfolio of power, cooling and IT infrastructure solutions and services that extends from the cloud to the edge of the network. Vertiv is headquartered in Columbus, Ohio, USA, with a global staff of around 20,000 employees. We do business in 130 countries with manufacturing, sales and service presence in every major country around the globe.

In Asia, Vertiv’s regional headquarters is located in Manila, Philippines and with offices across key cities in Southeast Asia, North Asia as well as in Australia and New Zealand. We also have Customer Experience Centres in Singapore, Philippines and Australia, among others.

Today’s networks are evolving, converging with an expanding IT ecosystem, and moving toward an undefined 5G architecture that will need to support advanced applications demanding high bandwidth and low latency. Our experienced team and broad solutions portfolio delivers the three things telecom providers value above all else: flexibility, speed and intelligent management.

Our global team is dedicated to collaborating with our customers on the design, engineering and construction of their facilities. We provide the key components of the critical infrastructure – structure, power protection, thermal management, and software controls – along with the expertise to understand how they integrate and interact. The result is wire-to-wire support for all of your network needs.

TowerXchange: How does the Asian market for towercos compare to other regions such as EMEA and/or North America? What are the benefits and/or opportunities for towercos in this region?

Mobile penetration in Asia, excluding China and India, is very high and is still a developing market for high-speed data. There are countries like Singapore, Australia, South Korea and Japan who are at the forefront when it comes to utilising and harnessing high-speed data and technology for 5G, IoT and other tech trends. Additionally, there are developing countries like Cambodia and Myanmar who are making huge headways when it comes to equipping and connecting local residents with mobile technology.

Again, if you were to exclude China and India, penetration of towerco companies in the rest of Asia remains relatively low compared to other regions across the globe. Political, geographical and regulatory challenges are the main reasons, but there is definitely growing interest and we see this as a positive sign of things to come.

In many countries across Asia, the telecom industry is dominated by one to two major players, making it difficult for independent towercos to operate. But there is definitely huge potential. For example, countries like the Philippines are opening up their markets for another MNO, and there is also a proposal for a common tower policy that would be something to watch out for. Other countries are also beginning to recognise the value of consolidating their towers under one operator, not only to increase efficiency but also to reduce cost as they roll out more mobile offerings and plan for the future. This is something to watch out for definitely.

TowerXchange: What are some of the main challenges that towercos and operators face in Asia, particularly with trends like 5G and IoT; and where do you see the main opportunities for innovation?

The key challenges faced by towercos are mainly regulatory and geographical in nature. Because most markets in this region are dominated by a select number of operators, towercos, particularly independent ones, are finding it difficult to penetrate some of them. But as noted above, there is a huge potential that lies in the future of towercos as governments are beginning to open up the space for other competitors.

As towercos move from single-operator to a multi-tenant business model, cost reduction and efficiency become top priorities. In terms of trends, with 5G in the horizon, we expect more cell sites and cell towers to be constructed to support the high-speed requirements of MNOs and consumers. This will greatly reduce latency and accommodate the requirement to connect more devices. This is where we see the growth and potential of edge computing and edge devices. Content needs to be cached closer to the users and data, which used to be stored centrally, is now distributed across the network. In terms of infrastructure, this requires a smaller footprint, yet powerful enough to support the spike in computing demands. Vertiv is well-positioned to support this challenge with our portfolio of edge computing solutions such as our micro data centres, which range from rack to row to full, prefabricated designs.

TowerXchange: What can you tell us about your experience working on data centres? Do you see them as a natural business evolution for telecom operators?

With the explosion in data and processing created by mobility, IoT, digitisation and other trends, the need for reliable, efficient and scalable data centres and edge sites has never been greater. Our history of engineering excellence has equipped us with a depth of knowledge and a breadth of reliable, innovative products unmatched in the industry. With smarter equipment, intelligent controls and integrated solutions, Vertiv works with our customers to make it easy to specify, deploy and manage individual products, complete systems, and entire data centres.

With 5G and IoT, MNOs are storing and managing more and more data generated from thousands of connected devices. And with greater emphasis on speed and reduced latency, telco facilities are realizing the huge potential of investing in their own data centre facilities not only to support back office applications, but also customer facing applications such as content and video, as well as cloud-based services.

Many mobile network operators are looking at software-defined networking (SDN) architectures for their data centre models. The focus on software opens up huge potential for savings, simplified management and ease of operation. If operators were to follow a data centre business model, they would need infrastructure that is tailored to fit their specific requirements. Aside from investing in software, prefabricated, fully integrated turnkey data centre solutions are also ideal. These facilities can be set up virtually anywhere, from small office spaces to large greenfield sites and come in rack or row deployments to full prefab designs.

These bespoke facilities are designed and engineered according to the specific requirements of a customer and contain power protection, thermal management, monitoring and complete lifecycle services.

Here in Asia, we are seeing some telco providers entering the data centre segment by providing co-location services to customers. This is the logical step as more data is generated due to trends like IoT and 5G. Telco operators need scalable and efficient infrastructure to support these data and to provide the best services that they can to customers.

TowerXchange: How can towercos best protect and optimise their infrastructure for future trends? What are the Vertiv solutions that can support these challenges?

Towercos can protect and optimise their infrastructure on a number of areas:

Design – in terms of design, towercos need a fast and reliable solution that has comprehensive warranty. Because of their location, towercos need quick response in case of emergency shutdowns or outages. Security around the perimeter is also important. Ultimately, they need a service provider that can provide planning, power, energy and service offerings in one package.

Energy efficiency – there are new innovations today that help increase energy efficiency in tower sites. Vertiv, for example, has our off-grid hybrid offerings that harness solar and/or wind energy to provide the best cost and power availability for remote locations. Our rectifiers and DC power solutions are also built to provide the best availability to ensure protection against downtime for tower sites.

Flexibility and scalability – because of the evolving demands in telco, operators must be able to adapt quickly with less downtime in their operations. This is why the need scalable, flexible solutions that can scale up or down depending on their business needs. Vertiv’s integrated solutions for edge of the network applications provide the best protection by integrating power, thermal management, racks and monitoring in a compact solution that can provide the best availability even offsite.

TowerXchange: Vertiv recently opened a new data centre factory in Thailand. How will this new facility address the needs of towercos in the country and in the region?

Our new data centre factory in Rayong, Thailand is situated in an area of 84,000 square meters in an industrial location. It is where bespoke, modular and prefabricated data centres will be constructed according to our customers’ requirements. Vertiv engineers, draftsmen and architects are also onsite, while our local team will also be there to help in the design and build process.

Vertiv’s turnkey data centre solutions showcase a unique collaborative design-build process, delivering infrastructure for compute and storage for a wide variety of applications, including telecom networks. Because of its prefabricated design and fully integrated features, our turnkey data centre solutions are deployed up to 50 percent faster than traditional builds.

The facility in Rayong will cater not just only for colocation and data centre customers, but also for our customers in the telco market, including towercos. We pride ourselves for providing solutions that specifically address our customers’ requirements. The capabilities in this facility are to build whatever our customers’ needs are, with no one-size-fits-all approach.

TowerXchange: Briefly touching upon one of the critical problems faced by Asian telecom players, can you give us an overview of the benefits and differences of your Lithium-Ion versus lead-acid batteries?

Vertiv has been one of the proponents of Lithium-ion batteries since it was first introduced in the market way back. Experienced users know that traditional lead-acid batteries are often considered the “weak link” in their data centre’s power chain.

With strings and strings of batteries required to support a modern facility, it might feel as if a possible failure is constantly lurking. These batteries tend to be high maintenance, heavy, and in need of frequent replacement. Innovations in monitoring, management, and service have helped to alleviate some of these pains but with marginal success and an added cost.

On average, lead-acid batteries which support critical applications need to be replaced every four to five years. With a high quantity deployed, users may feel they face a near perpetual replacement cycle. Each time this occurs, it consumes time and money, and creates additional headaches for the site and its personnel.

So why Lithium-ion batteries? The benefits and attributes of Lithium-ion are significantly better than traditional batteries:

Longer life – Lithium-ion batteries can achieve life spans of four times than that of lead-acid batteries. This translates into fewer battery replacement cycles and fewer operational disruptions

Less weight – up to 60% weight savings compared to lead-acid reduces floor-loading thresholds, which in turn can reduce facility construction costs. Lithium-ion batteries also open up the capability to locate batteries in places that have been off limits to traditional lead-acid batteries

Smaller size – big battery rooms are avoided. For greenfield sites, space saved can be realigned for better use or omitted from designs to reduce construction costs

Shelf life – whereas lead acid batteries require a ‘top off’ charge every six months, lead-acid batteries can last up to 18 months with no attention required

High temperature operation – Lithium-ion batteries can operate at higher ambient temperatures without degrading.

It is important to note though that not all Lithium-ion batteries are the same. The Battery University highlights six common variants of Lithium-ion batteries, including Lithium-iron phosphate (LFP), Lithium manganese oxide (LMO), and Lithium nickel cobalt manganese (NMC). It is important to understand the components of each variant to choose what will work best for your critical applications.

The future looks definitely promising for Lithium-ion batteries. They are designed to bring extended life, reduced weight, smaller size and greater flexibility to modern data centre providers. We are witnessing the beginnings of favourable cost models.