Category: Events

In light of our recent in-building seminar in Buenos Aires, Argentina, we thought we’d share some of the market intelligence we gathered in the region. Enjoy!

1. Argentina is one of the most dynamic mobile markets and the third largest in Latin America, after Brazil and Mexico.
2. Mobile penetration looks set to reach approximately 147% by the end of 2013, with the number of subscribers increasing by 3% annually.
3. Many Argentineans own multiple SIM cards, some having different phones for work and personal calls, some having a phone for each mobile company to take advantage of special offers, and some requiring an additional SIM card for mobile broadband.
4. Argentina’s smartphone penetration is well above the estimated world average; at the end of 2012, about 24% of Argentineans owned a smartphone, compared with an estimated 15% world penetration. In 2013, Argentina’s smartphone market is expected to outperform all other markets in the region.
5. Three mobile companies compete neck-and-neck, each one controlling about one third of the country’s mobile market: América Móvil’s Claro is the market leader, followed by Telecom Personal (the mobile unit of Telecom Argentina, controlled by Telecom Italia) and Telefónica’s Movistar. Nextel has but a small 3% market share, and Fecosur, an association of fixed-line telecom cooperatives, offers Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) services branded as Nuestro.
6. Mexican finance group Fintech recently agreed to acquire a stake in Telecom Argentina SA from Telecom Italia in a $960 million deal to benefit from increasing Web and video use on mobile devices.
7. LTE is not operative yet but deployments will start in 2014 in order to cope with the huge data demand. No mobile operator wants to be left behind.
8. There is a strong lack of in-building infrastructure to offload the mobile outdoor network and satisfy current and future data demand.
9. The iBwave Product Suite is already the standard design tool in the country: all DAS networks at stadiums, shopping malls, and office buildings were designed and optimized by using iBwave products.

Buenos dias from Buenos Aires!

Our in-building seminar at the beautiful Hotel Madero in Buenos Aires was quite possibly our most successful Latin American seminar yet. We had nearly 50 people attend, some even flew in from Cordoba and some great discussions occurred throughout the day.

We started the day with an overview of the in-building market worldwide, presented by iBwave’s VP Global Sales, Juan Felipe Gonzalez, followed by iBwave presentations on designing and deploying in-building systems as well as managing a growing volume of in-building projects by our Manager of Sales Engineering for the Americas, Alex Jovel.

Cristian Wandel-Petersen from Personal Telecom did an excellent presentation on why his company chose iBwave Design for their indoor wireless network design needs.

Finally, iBwave Sales Engineer Milton Malva did a live demonstration of the iBwave Product Suite (you can also take a live demo from your computer) followed by our famous rapid fire panel, featuring industry experts providing short – often one word – answers to questions on industry trends. The panel sparked some very interesting audience discussions.

To learn more about some of the content discussed during the seminar, take a look at our related blog post, 10 Things you Need to Know about the Argentinian In-building Market.

After a quick draw, cocktails ensued! Congrats to our iBwave Certification winners, Gabriel Morales from Telefonica and Martin Lema from Multi Radio, as well as the ten people who went home with iBwave hats. Don’t forget to send us pictures at marketing@ibwave.com or post them on our Facebook page!

Thanks to our Argentinian agent Globo Group for being great hosts, taking great photos and for the incredible job at helping with the organization and guest registration during the event. See you next time!

The iBwave CALA team was enthusiastic for another Futurecom, after experiencing a highly successful show last year. What was less expected was the security threat level in Rio as our team arrived on the very same day that Brazil was auctioning the exploration rights for the Libra oil field. What more? We were staying at the same hotel as the government officials conducting Libra’s oil exploration auction, implying we had to sneak in through the back door of the hotel to avoid riot squads. Our brave CALA Sales Manager, Espy Hughes-Johnson, still managed to sneak in a photo with the riot squad later in the day though.

Once at the conference, we were not disappointed. With the Brazilian telecom market growing so fast due to the upcoming World Cup and Olympics and with Futurecom attracting over 12,000 people from 48 countries, 340 exhibitors and 333 speakers, there was so much interesting information going around.

• Brazil is the 5th largest mobile market in the world, with 262 million mobile subscribers
• Brazil represents 42% of the total Latin American subscribers and 52% of subscribers in South America
• Mobile density is 133% (there are 133 mobile connections per 100 people)
• Mobile investment represents $5 billion USD in 2012 alone

The mobile market is dominated by the following operators:

• Telefonica | VIVO (28.7% market share)
• TIM (27.2% market share)
• Claro (25% market share)
• Oi (18.7% market share) – recently acquired by Portugal Telecom

And the buzz around indoor wireless had a big presence too. There was a lot of talk around small cells in the Brazilian market and the challenges surrounding them. First of all, only 20% of the country is fiber ready so the cost of backhaul implementation is creating a challenge for small cell deployments. Municipal authorization for operators to deploy small cells is another hurdle since the administrative process can be very lengthy and create delays on the deployments. But despite the challenges, one speaker stated that the only way to satisfy the indoor bandwidth demand in Brazil is by implementing HetNet solutions.

A final recurring theme throughout presentations and trade show discussions is the fact that many of the World Cup 2014 stadiums are not yet finished, delaying the indoor network design and planning process. This is creating much worry for operators who want to ensure a good wireless experience for the World Cup fans.

All of this buzz meant a busy trade show for everyone, including the iBwave team. Top left: Juan Felipe Gonzalez, iBwave’s VP Global Sales with the Canadian Delegation in Brazil – smiling after a dramatic start to the show! Below left: the Canada Pavilion. To the right: Juan and Milton Malva, our Brazilian Sales Engineer for CALA next to the iBwave banner in the Canada Pavilion.

On Wednesday, we co-hosted a cocktail at the Grauer Solutions booth with CommScope, Aniteand Grauer Solutions. The event was a resounding success with 80 attendees, caipirinhas abound and one lucky guest, Ralf Souza from Spectrum Solutions, who went home with an iPad. Thanks to all who attended!

Looking forward to Futurecom 2014!