2015 Trends

Trends & Forecasts

WeDo Technologies: Mário Ramos' 2015 Trends

The Central American telecom market is seeing a continued trend towards enabling connectivity, following similar technological and business model processes of other more developed economic regions such as its US neighbour and Europe.

While wireless voice is still one of the main business focuses in the region, there is room for fast growth in Pay TV, despite its small percentage in the overall business. As the telecom landscape in Central America continues to grow, it is clear that wireless data and Pay TV will remain key drivers.

The telecom market that WeDo Technologies covers in Central America includes Mexico (WeDo’s headquarters for the region), Venezuela, Ecuador, Panama, Cuba, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, Suriname, Guyana, French Guiana and Colombia. In line with the recent trends seen in this region, we expect to see more investments in the expansion of data capabilities on mobile and fixed networks, as well as the increased speed, capacity and coverage of existing networks that are still generating frustration from end users. We also anticipate further investment in convergence across Central America following the successful launch of similar investment programs in countries throughout Europe.

The Central American region is dominated by Mexico. By far the largest market in the region, it is currently undergoing a huge regulatory environment change that will likely redefine the local Mexican landscape, and might also influence its neighbours. Following the ratification of the new Telecommunications law in July 2014, dominant broadband and telephony operator America Movil and Televisa, a key broadcaster, have been forced to undertake measures to decrease their market shares. Additionally, AT&T, which recently entered into an agreement to acquire Iusacell, is likely to be a threat to America Movil and Telefonica (the key players in the region) by taking advantage of the huge community of Mexican people that move, do business and have families on both sides of the US and Mexican border. Virgin and other MVNOs (Coppel, Elektra) are also confirmed to enter this rapidly expanding market.

The existing signs are positive that the promise of the Mexican government to change industry regulations will really take place and thus, the competition in the region will be fierce; with clear benefits for consumers. On the Pay TV market-front, Izzi (part of Televisa Group, the largest Spanish content producer in the region) is likely to have ambitions to become the largest TV player in the Mexican market by acquiring others, becoming a national player. When the convergence battle takes place, it is likely that Izzi will be in a better position to acquire or search for an alliance with other mobile players.

Together with the timely roll-out of technologies such as LTE, high speed networks, mobile payments, NFC and M2M, the industry landscape of highly competitive markets will continue to put more pressure on businesses and margins. With these changes come a number of new business challenges that need to be faced and handled effectively and efficiently in order to protect both the customer experience and the bottom line. As a result, we are seeing more demand from service providers to develop Enterprise Business Assurance (EBA) strategies and projects.

 

Customer feedback and our experience in the region has demonstrated that a Revenue Assurance project can offer an operator payback in around eight months, while a Fraud Management project can do the same in less than three. There are however new avenues to explore in the region, including the auditing of incentive processes that represent a huge cost to an operator, as well as other processes like asset control (in the context of convergence) and payment control, to name just a few. Our role in EBA is taking the business assurance concept to every department across the enterprise. As the Central American technology landscape moves from strength to strength, we look forward to the challenge of driving new investment in the region.

Mário Ramos is the Vice President for Central America at WeDo Technologies.



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