In a region increasingly defined by its diversity and cost pressures, autonomous networks are on every operator’s roadmap. In this week’s newsletter, Mauricio Gonzalez Nappa, telco lead at systems integrator Isbel, and Sachin Mahajan of Rakuten Symphony examine what shapes the diverse LATAM market, why the path to Level 3 and Level 4 automation requires laser-focused execution and where automation is already paying off.
The LATAM telecom market is defined by 100+ operators serving a population of 670 million people spread across 33 countries.
In fact, referring to it as “the LATAM market” is misleading given the sheer diversity of regulation, geography, population, strategies and business realities seen in the region.
This diversity mattered less when a steady march from one G to the next and general business model alignment defined how operators planned and invested in networks.
5G, automation and AI are changing this, along with a competitive landscape that is in perpetual motion following years of relative calm.
One of the largest players, Millicom, has recently expanded from nine to 12 countries via four acquisitions, adding operations in Uruguay, Ecuador and Chile, and expanding its footprint in Colombia. In the process, the operator has grown its once Central America-centric base to become a formidable regional challenger in key markets.
New entrants are also redefining some market landscapes. When new companies enter, they arrive with new plans, new investments and new ways of thinking, with playbooks often favoring reduced costs and expedited platform deployments that support transformation and advanced service delivery.
The underlying market economics remain fragile, though. ARPU is well below markets like Europe and the U.S. as constant profit tension leaves little room for error.
Meanwhile, customer expectations only increase as hyperscalers and OTT platforms (i.e., not other telcos) turn a Netflix- or Disney-like fully digital, best-in-class experience into table stakes. As a result, operators are under increased pressure to get creative on the innovation, cost efficiency and customer support front while having to face the realities of a CapEx-intensive, five-nines operations that are not easy to pivot on a dime.
Even in the face of this pressure, the outlook is increasingly promising as a global automation and AI-driven transformation wave stands to power pursuit of more diverse, market-tailored models that could finally drive profitable growth following years of shrinking margins.
All eyes on AI, automation and autonomous network healing
Real automation is being deployed across LATAM with traction across AI projects within various disciplines. Customer support is one of the strongest success cases yet.
One Caribbean operator was struggling with inbound customer messages on every contact channel, often about issues unrelated to the operator, like OTT streaming errors. Explaining “it’s not the connectivity, it’s the app” over and over is hard and expensive at scale.
AI-powered predictive analytics is proving able to accurately predict and detect app failures that can then be broadcast on social media so customers are aware of issues, resulting in less calls and lower costs. Ultimately, more autonomy will be integrated via data aggregation, cloud-native operations and closed-loop automation.
Given CapEx pressures, predicting equipment life cycle, anticipating failures and knowing when to replace gear is a direct path to cost reduction. Operators are addressing regional cost pressure with predictive maintenance for networks that comprise large installed bases of routers, DWDM and RAN equipment, which need to be constantly maintained and energized.
On the energy front, base stations can hog resources, even in “more efficient” 5G operations, where significant room remains to optimize power consumption and reduce costs. With energy sources and availability varying across regions, AI can make an outsized impact on resource conservation.
Engineers, technical managers and CTOs all recognize automation is the path to growth and efficient operations. The vision exists. As does the supporting tech.
But reaching Level 3 and Level 4 automation in these markets demands new levels of cooperation across telco organizations that are traditionally complex and siloed, especially in tier 1 operations that typically comprise many areas, managers and bureaucracy. In other words, implementation barriers that are not insurmountable but that require considerable navigation and planning.
While the markets are diverse, many operators face a similar battle: how to overcome execution bottlenecks to cruise along the path to automation.
That starts with a mindset shift of deployments as programmable platforms, not systems. This approach provides an environment suited to teams collaborating “under the hood” to reach increasing levels of autonomy.
Build vs. buy: one operator’s experience
An anecdotal but representative illustration of the execution gap challenge came from a tier-two operator that a few years back set out to climb the autonomy ladder, from roughly Level 2 toward Level 3, backed by strong ambition and commitment.
They set a sound, concrete plan to pull data from across systems (AAA, OSS and multiple element management systems), unify it and trigger actions for use cases like detecting and responding to performance degradation.
With a strong, skilled and capable engineering team at the helm, they made a decision to build the architecture themselves. The process broke along the way.
Talent and technology weren’t lacking. The actual org chart and cross-team coordination needed to bring autonomy to bear was too complex.
Standards and integration also posed a challenge, with extensive work required to meet TM Forum compliance and build toward a real standard in-house.
Ultimately, the resolution revealed a lesson relevant to the broader market: the operator stayed the course toward autonomy but shifted strategy. Instead of self-building what was needed, this tier-two operator adopted a proven, TM Forum compliant solution that made it easier to execute from a technical perspective, backed by the confidence they were deploying an “authorized” option.
Top takeaways from early automation success
From Rakuten Symphony and Isbel’s work in the region, common contributors to automation execution success have emerged in key lessons that include:
- The hardest constraint is organizational. Talent and technology are rarely what hold autonomy back. Cooperation across complex, siloed organizations requires operators to organize and govern for autonomy as deliberately as they engineer it.
- Build to a standard. Successful autonomy demands support from a real, validated standard like TM Forum compliance.
- Deploy automation strategically for high-value use cases. Use cases like customer support, predictive maintenance and energy that target high-value problems provide targeted opportunities to prove automation and AI viability and build confidence to expand.
ARPU pressures are here to stay, making it imperative that stakeholders push the boundaries of technical and business innovation. It is the same pressure—and opportunity—that drove Rakuten Mobile’s pioneering efforts in Japan, which continues to offer lessons for how operators in competitive regions can work toward advanced deployments that yield measurable business outcomes.
It all comes down to execution.
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