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Decoding Digital Transformation in Emerging Markets
30 Plays2 months ago
In this episode, we dive into the opportunities and challenges of bringing transformative technologies to emerging markets. Our guest Carlos Perea, an Investor and Advisor in Tech, joins us to explore what it really takes to deliver impact where infrastructure, regulation, and access can be both barriers and catalysts for innovation. From leapfrogging legacy systems to navigating local ecosystems, we unpack real-world lessons, unexpected pitfalls, and what success looks like on the ground.
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Transcript
Introduction to Telco Drift with Carlos Perea - Skip The First 10 Seconds As My Mic Did Not Collaborate!
00:00:01
Pablo Tomasi
Hello everyone and welcome back to the Telco Drift. For those that haven't met yet, I'm Pablo, sort of an independent industry analyst and in today's episode I'm joined by Carlos Perea to chat about innovative Tech in emerging market.
00:00:15
Pablo Tomasi
Carlos, welcome to the Telco Drift.
00:00:18
Carlos Perea
Thank you, Pablo. And it's actually a pleasure to be here and a pleasure to be you know sharing some ideas and and potentially you know some good conversations around what is going on in the emerging markets from my perspective.
00:00:30
Carlos Perea
And honored to be here with your audience. Thank you. Thank you for invitation.
00:00:33
Pablo Tomasi
like Okay, i amazing. you know it was like did Good to have another guest on the show after me you know chatting a bit of nonsense for a couple of episodes. So, and you know just just before we get into the emerging market stuff, so I know you're an investor and advisor in the technology sphere, so can you just share little bit more about your your background and sort of your your story and before then we start moving on on the on the content itself?
00:00:56
Carlos Perea
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. So, well, I started over my career about 35 years ago in in in Mexico City in the U.S. with AT&T. um I was leading basically at that time what it was the new expansion of the telecom industry in the 90s when, you know, the international expansion for companies and, you know, manufacturing and exportation was going on. So I was leading basically all the U.S. multinationals and then later global accounts, global multinationals,
00:01:26
Carlos Perea
expanding into Mexico and Latin America. And I moved to 3Com then, leading all the expansions for them in the late 90s. And I started off also the operations for extreme networks. Probably some of you may remember Extreme Networks which is doing actually very well recently.
00:01:42
Carlos Perea
They were the networking company that was the challenger in gigabit ethernet and 10 gigabit ethernet back then at the time in the late 90s and early 2000s. I led the operation from Mexico across all Latin America, growing basically from zero customers to $100 million dollars in 15 years.
00:02:01
Carlos Perea
I was actually leading that until 2015. Then I moved to to Gigamon Corporation, also starting up the operations for networking visibility. And then later on, what we became the cybersecurity engine for visibility networks and visibility operations and in the core of the networks. It was a really, really nice project.
00:02:24
Carlos Perea
we We started up operations in Brazil, in Mexico, all across Latin America. lived several years in in Brazil as well. And then from there, we we moved um to Infovista, also launching some something that they were doing, and they they were making something very interesting. They were coming on from ah from a ah separation and spinoff of Orange Networks at the time,
00:02:50
Carlos Perea
They were integrating something that is that was called Ipanema Networks that was eventually sold to Extreme Networks as well for SD-WAN solutions. was very interesting. um And then I helped them out to relaunch all the operations across Latin America. And it was very successful at the time before I moved with, the the at the time, the chief revenue officer that moved into Cradlepoint. And I helped them out as well to design the entire operation and the due diligence for marketing and international expansion across Latin America in terms of which countries, which markets, how do the they do the export and the ah the you know the expansion for specific countries like Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, and so on.
00:03:33
Pablo Tomasi
Mm-hmm.
00:03:35
Carlos Perea
So it's been a full career, I would say, in in tech, very, very focused on international expansion, very, very focused on growth. and and technology, connectivity, networking, cybersecurity.
00:03:48
Carlos Perea
And recently I have been more on the advisory side and an investment side like across different geographies and also with different funds of investments that I am leading with my family office that I'm leading from several years ago in the market.
00:04:05
Carlos Perea
We have investment in companies like Anthropic, for example, or companies like ah like recently like Klarna.
00:04:09
Pablo Tomasi
Mm-hmm.
00:04:12
Carlos Perea
We have been doing in private investment in different other companies that have been public successfully recently. And right now, um some advisory to tech companies that are willing to merge and leverage what they do in terms of connectivity, as well as you know full stack design and full stack development in terms of solution for the end user.
00:04:35
Carlos Perea
and And my expertise is essentially integrating the technology into the business models for international expansion. That's what I do.
00:04:43
Pablo Tomasi
I mean, I can summarize this. yeah You have been quite busy over the last few years with quite a few nice projects.
00:04:47
Carlos Perea
Yeah.
NVIDIA's Investment in Nokia: AI in Telecom
00:04:51
Pablo Tomasi
And yeah, it seems like yeah you're the right person to talk about, you know, bringing that technology and expanding it into emerging markets, which we know are a completely different beast compared to, you know, what where you you would find in the the more mature markets and environments.
00:05:06
Pablo Tomasi
But, you know, you know when did we start thinking about emerging markets, probably 6G is not the first thing that comes to mind. you know, there was just a big announcement from NVIDIA and Nokia about effectively NVIDIA pouring like a good chunk of money into Nokia.
00:05:23
Pablo Tomasi
i been A bit of a segway but what are your thoughts on this? How how important do you see this developing you know for the future of the telco market?
00:05:33
Carlos Perea
Yeah, well, first though I will say like i was genuinely very impressed about the the announcement.
00:05:41
Carlos Perea
Very pleased actually to see that finally there is there is some element that is bringing back the telecom industry into the into the game. ah you know the The telecom industry for several years already has been, would probably say, in the back seat in many markets.
00:06:01
Carlos Perea
ah because of the lack of you know focus on them two the the needs of the customer, the needs of the market, the needs of the application layer that can actually be deliver value for customers.
00:06:12
Carlos Perea
ah The integration of a company like NVIDIA, for example, into the stack of the solution is more of bringing alive the network, not just pure connectivity, but also intelligence into the connections and also intelligence into the applications that the eventual users are going to having leveraging the connectivity that is across different countries. And Nokia is the perfect candidate because they are in, that you know, to our topic here is that they they are basically the leaders in the enterprise market.
00:06:41
Carlos Perea
And the enterprise is actually the number one consumer of, you know, artificial intelligence right now in many ways. And also at the same time, I see that the accessibility that Nokia will have ah with with new technologies that is practically impossible to develop by themselves.
00:06:56
Pablo Tomasi
hmm
00:06:59
Carlos Perea
in the short term is going be delivering a quantum leap into the solution pack that they're going to be facing with these type of customers eventually in the long run. And also for NVIDIA, I believe is the perfect pathway for having access into the direct end user level at a global scale in a very, very quick fashion for delivering these type of solutions.
00:07:24
Carlos Perea
I see it's a win-win for both of them, but moreover, what I see essentially quantum leap into the industry that is going to be, within the next five to 10 years, changing the way we see telecom and changing the way we experience networks, basically, and services across the board.
00:07:26
Pablo Tomasi
Mm-hmm.
00:07:43
Pablo Tomasi
it's it's It's good to hear. me you're You're very positive on on the development. I think it is it's an interesting one because there have been some talk about AI run for some time, but this like a clear show of intent, right clear commitments.
00:07:58
Pablo Tomasi
We do see that opportunity to to to be playing in the field and probably something that you know our our teleco friends will be able to to start thinking about and you know strategize and think, okay, what can we really do next?
5G Adoption Challenges in Emerging Markets
00:08:13
Pablo Tomasi
but he's been bringing this into manager market that was not do you expect such a development or so to get that broader i play to potentially democratize the adoption of new tech in emerging markets you think that that is also something that we can expect or is still going to be more than much more markets are things
00:08:33
Carlos Perea
Well, that' that's a very good question, Pablo, because says it it brings me back into the topic of why 5G hasn't been successful in emerging markets yet. And the reason why is because of what we were describing before.
00:08:48
Carlos Perea
The focus of the service providers as well as the technology vendors on 5G has a lot of heavy lifting to do before delivering the services to you know to to the end user.
00:09:01
Carlos Perea
What I mean by that is um the technology is not just democratic for anyone. That's a reality. 6G is far, far, far away for many, to be to be honest with you right now.
00:09:13
Carlos Perea
I mean, in terms of in terms of technology, what we're seeing as as a possibility for 5G in different countries in emerging markets is probably five to 10 years far away of what is reality right now in in the market for them.
00:09:28
Pablo Tomasi
Yeah,
00:09:30
Carlos Perea
if we think about 6G for them, it's just probably 15 or more, or maybe even you know never will arrive.
00:09:37
Carlos Perea
and
00:09:37
Pablo Tomasi
it's sci-fi at the moment where 6G will land in emerging markets, but get good to dream.
00:09:43
Carlos Perea
Yeah, exactly. And and you know in my view um and in my experience, what I believe is LTE connected people when it came. 5G is basically designed for connecting industries. And 5G standalone, which is you know going a little bit into the topic,
00:10:01
Carlos Perea
is where industries get you know powerful and empowered by the technology. and And in in general, you know the infrastructure ah is is is technology for economic transformation, and not all economies are actually ready to be transformed.
00:10:17
Carlos Perea
Many of these economies and emerging markets are still struggling in different ways on the basics. So what I see is there is there is still a lot of regulation to happen,
00:10:29
Carlos Perea
around the technology adoption for for you know before being democratized, it has to be allowed by the by the governments. And many governments don't really understand that they can actually be transformed with this type of technology because they have another priorities and they have other needs in in the plate right now going on.
Political Influence on Tech Adoption
00:10:48
Pablo Tomasi
I mean this becomes a bit different conversation but and um a bit of topic probably It doesn't make sense that probably the the technology agenda is still detached from the political agenda in emerging markets. Is that a fair assumption?
00:11:02
Pablo Tomasi
Because if I'm thinking and more mature market like the US, you you can see how the technology agenda now is embedded in the political a agenda and how every everything needs to be going that direction.
00:11:12
Carlos Perea
right
00:11:16
Pablo Tomasi
You can claim the same things for China, right? So is is that... politics hasn't hasn't reached a stage yet where they say, okay, tech is going to be like a key pillar for us in in driving our own, reaching our objective.
00:11:32
Carlos Perea
Yeah, absolutely. I think the i think the political understanding of the of the capacity of the technology is still not yet developed fully in in many different countries.
00:11:49
Carlos Perea
I would say there is a lot of room for education at a political level of what can be possible for the countries to leverage through throughout the usage of technology if they allow the technology to be basically part of their political agenda as well as the political ah speech as well as you know the the strategy for the country for the next five to ten to fifteen twenty years very few countries i have seen you know making that quantum leap those who can actually understand the adoption of technology as as an enabler of their development are the ones who are actually making a difference and usually are are those countries who are a little bit smaller and more
00:12:11
Pablo Tomasi
Mm-hmm.
00:12:36
Carlos Perea
you know focused on on the value for their citizens and the value for their companies that are actually being attracted into the into the country compared to those who have the power to be you know the needle movers.
00:12:44
Pablo Tomasi
Mm-hmm.
00:12:48
Carlos Perea
i'm I'm talking about, you know let's aside of of course US, China, UK, and a few other you know handful of countries in in Europe and and several others in Asia,
00:13:00
Carlos Perea
We have a lot of countries, let's say, in emerging markets where they have the appetite to go after the technology and develop solutions and killer applications leveraging at least LTE or 5G non-standalone.
00:13:15
Pablo Tomasi
Mm-hmm.
Mexico's Telecom Landscape and Red Compartida
00:13:17
Pablo Tomasi
Mm-hmm.
00:13:18
Carlos Perea
But the the regulation is basically limiting the growth and limiting the possibilities for them to actually grow in terms of technology and and the deployment that they can actually deliver and do.
00:13:29
Carlos Perea
Good example for instance is in Latin America, we have two behemoths of economies. We have Brazil from one side and we have Mexico on the other side.
00:13:40
Carlos Perea
So Mexico is still struggling in terms of the technology agenda and it's actually going backwards instead of going forward in terms of the technology and telecommunications, what they are doing right now recently.
00:13:54
Carlos Perea
mean, they close out the the Federal Institute of Telecommunications. they got rid of the 5G tender and so on. Whereas Brazil has been doing an amazing job in defining, for example, public usage of broadband access for for private networks.
00:14:14
Carlos Perea
And they also have 5G standalone in specific cities. And they have 5G already for different applications.
00:14:17
Pablo Tomasi
Mm-hmm.
00:14:21
Carlos Perea
FinTech, for example, is a huge, huge business transformation ah strategy for the country. and is basically leveraging the connectivity capabilities that the network in three or four different carriers have in the country.
00:14:35
Carlos Perea
And this is speaking about the same region. This is Latin America. If we go the same in different countries like you know in in Africa or in Southeast Asia or even even some some pockets of Europe, we see something similar in different countries where the technology is there The solution is actually there. You know, the the industrial level connectivity that is available to make with the technology available right now is amazing.
00:15:03
Carlos Perea
Just even thinking about LTE. But if we think about the other possibilities for them can make can make a you know huge change of how the country can actually develop in a shorter amount of time.
00:15:06
Pablo Tomasi
Yeah.
00:15:16
Carlos Perea
But it depends mainly on the political agenda that they will have.
Adapting Tech to Local Ecosystems
00:15:22
Pablo Tomasi
that that's interesting because again tech is always there like a lot of this conversation the tech is there and then everything around it is is difficult to grasp but a quick follow-up is the red compartida still a thing in mexico Or is it a thing anymore?
00:15:37
Carlos Perea
Well, that's...
00:15:39
Pablo Tomasi
Because I remember back in the days I used to cover Mexico and and I loved the idea of that Red Compartida and what it was supposed to be doing. I haven't followed much recently, so I'm not even sure it's still there. Do you have any updates on that?
00:15:54
Carlos Perea
Yeah, yeah. And I think, and and you're nailing I mean, the... um The concept of Altan, which is the Red Compartida, and it's actually, it's something that was innovative at the time.
00:16:06
Carlos Perea
and And I believe it was a very good idea for just exactly speaking about the democratization of connectivity and opening the network for you know different layers of the of the social grid in the country, as well as giving access to you know to people who never have had connectivity whatsoever of any kind.
00:16:14
Pablo Tomasi
Mm-hmm.
00:16:27
Carlos Perea
uh from from its inception i think the concept is very good from the uh development standpoint i think it has has been having some some sort of uh evolution and especially recently where altan is basically now part of cfe telecom and cfe telecom is basically part of ah the federal government and now you have basically
00:16:51
Pablo Tomasi
Hmm. Hmm.
00:16:54
Carlos Perea
the same player that can actually deliver services through a bunch of MVNOs, which is really interesting, but they have limited access into LTE only. They don't have anything related to five g and at the same time cfe is is becoming another telecom player into the market that is competing with incumbents so this is good and bad i mean it's good because it creates pressure into the incumbent in the market which is basically carso group and all the companies that they have is
00:17:12
Pablo Tomasi
Hmm.
00:17:23
Pablo Tomasi
Yeah, which is a big incumbent. I remember back in the days, it was a proper definition of incumbent.
00:17:29
Carlos Perea
yeah yeah exactly they and and they are doing amazing i mean to be honest with you they they do really well in terms of operation. They do really well in terms of delivering services, but at the same time, they don't have urgency to, to become, you know, a huge differentiator in terms of innovation in 5G or standalone 5G or, you know, or, or even, don't even think about 6G, for example, but, um,
00:17:53
Carlos Perea
But those those kind of pressures that they put through Red Compartida, Altan, and the network and all the MVNOs is really good for the market if they can cap they can be kept in the you know in in the isolation and separation of the market.
00:18:09
Pablo Tomasi
Mm-hmm.
00:18:10
Carlos Perea
Now they are part of the government. the The game is different. And now the game is basically you have CFE Telecom and then Altan as part of the same game.
00:18:23
Carlos Perea
And and a bunch of others. So I don't see that as a benefit for the country in terms of you know digitization and an evolution where they actually need to be.
00:18:35
Pablo Tomasi
You know, so let let's call it sort of a half-good, you know, glass half-full type of development.
00:18:42
Carlos Perea
yeah know Yeah, exactly.
00:18:43
Pablo Tomasi
So <unk> a it's it's it's good to see, you know, something different, right, that is, I think, a little bit more suited to local dynamics.
00:18:43
Carlos Perea
yeah i mean
00:18:52
Carlos Perea
Yeah.
00:18:52
Pablo Tomasi
Because that made sense back in the days. I'm probably thinking about local dynamics. So when we're thinking about bringing new tech emerging market, do you think that there needs to be a local ecosystem that that is really capable of taking that technology was like 5G, whatever you want, and that is adapting it to the local environment?
00:19:17
Pablo Tomasi
Because that could be, I imagine, quite a big roadblock if you don't have the effectively the resources and the structure to to have that ecosystem in place. you think that is essential and that's potentially one of the reasons why some tech may struggle in emerging markets?
00:19:31
Carlos Perea
Yeah, that's a brilliant question because I have been recently advising a couple of companies that are doing investment in ah in the telecom side in in some of these emerging markets.
00:19:42
Carlos Perea
and And definitely there are two elements that are key for being successful in those. One is the element of understanding the local regulation so that they can actually know where the boundaries within the market
00:19:53
Pablo Tomasi
Mm-hmm.
00:19:57
Carlos Perea
and the government willingness to stretch those boundaries towards the usage of the technology. And you cannot have that without a local partner. that's That's one thing.
00:20:08
Carlos Perea
The other thing, which is the other side of the coin, is basically the ecosystem that is going to be leveraging the connectivity layer with services and applications that can actually you know explode all this all these platforms of technology and the bandwidth they can have and and the resilience that they can have and immediately, you know, accessibility that they they can actually have if if the ecosystem is not well grounded in local local partnerships.
00:20:36
Carlos Perea
So you really need to have that in in in the country that you want to land. Those two elements in in my mind are are some of the most important and and the And the choice of a partner is actually very, very important because it can be ah from from local you know operators that are probably the the challengers in the market to you know new entrepreneurs that are coming from different areas of technology that require the connectivity layer as one of the enablers for the solution and delivery so that they can actually have a fresh look into the market instead of coming from the traditional core and edge mindset that we we have seen
00:21:18
Carlos Perea
in in many different you know businesses.
Telefonica's Exit from Latin America
00:21:22
Pablo Tomasi
and it's slightly connected to this but slightly a little bit further off so Telefonica been leaving most these latin american markets right so they've been selling off
00:21:32
Carlos Perea
Mm-hmm.
00:21:35
Pablo Tomasi
I think Colombia, Ecuador, Argentina, they're in the process of selling, pretty much everything except Brazil.
00:21:40
Carlos Perea
Mm-hmm.
00:21:40
Pablo Tomasi
How do you see that from, you know, again, bringing new tech? Is that an opportunity? you know, I think quite a few were acquired by Millicom, if I'm correct.
00:21:49
Carlos Perea
Mm-hmm.
00:21:49
Pablo Tomasi
So you think that as ah is a positive because it's sort of a bit of a hungrier company, if you want, to develop in the region compared to Telefonica, probably after a while was not that committed?
00:22:00
Pablo Tomasi
or you know the fact that it says more companies will still present other challenges
00:22:06
Carlos Perea
Well, this is interesting because, you know, the what is happening with with Telefonica after probably a good 20 years of try and true in the market, they did, I would say, quite decently in different markets, first with fixed line access and then later with mobile.
00:22:23
Carlos Perea
And then they were they were trying very hard in countries like, ah you know, Chile, Peru, Argentina. they they They were doing very well. in In Colombia, for example, it was a little bit harder because of the conditions of the market there.
00:22:36
Carlos Perea
In Mexico, a couple years ago, I think, or yeah a little more, they decided to sell all you know the ah the concessions of the of of the Spectrum to AT&T,
00:22:37
Pablo Tomasi
Yeah.
00:22:50
Carlos Perea
which was also, in my mind, a very good decision for them. But on the other hand, we go back to Brazil. And in Brazil, we have Telefonica Vivo, which is huge player here in the market, doing things really, really nicely, really well, and delivering a huge value there.
00:23:07
Carlos Perea
Once again, the the baseline of their success is basically the regulatory environment that they have.
00:23:13
Pablo Tomasi
Mm-hmm.
00:23:14
Carlos Perea
little bit market size, but the regulatory environment is allowing them to be successful with the but the economics that they have in the operation. All of the countries... ah despite the appetite of Telefonica being successful at a regional level, ah are quite different because Latin America for many is is a single country. In reality, it's a collection of more than 50 countries that you have different stakeholders, different players, different laws, different regulations, different rules of the game, sometimes even different accents and way to you know communicate.
00:23:48
Carlos Perea
um So it is different and it's challenging for for a company like Telefonica. I believe um the decision is good for them. i believe the acquirers like Millicom, for example, who is actually playing into the geography expansion and doing it really well, ah they deliver the type of solution in the bracket of the consumer that they are actually targeting, leveraging the spectrum that they already have access from ah from that acquisition.
00:24:17
Carlos Perea
Different of what they are doing in countries like you know Spain and some others in Europe, or in Brazil in particular, where they have the consumer level, and then they have also a bracket for enterprise business, which is very lucrative because they actually can deliver value based on what they have.
00:24:35
Pablo Tomasi
So it seems that Brazil is definitely a good example for for people to to keep in mind in terms of our environment.
Private 5G Networks Potential and Challenges in Emerging Markets
00:24:41
Pablo Tomasi
But so you mentioned Brazil, you mentioned Vivo and sort of, you know, favorite technology of everyone is private 5G and Vivo has been you know deploying few private 5G networks.
00:24:52
Pablo Tomasi
you know quite quite a few years back in the mining space um so my question for you is that do you see private 5g as potentially being sort of a cheat code of starting bringing that more advanced connectivity that more forward-looking technology into this market is that is that possible and i'm asking it in a moment where private is not going through a particularly rosy time in terms of you know hype and and people being happy with how the market is developing
00:25:25
Carlos Perea
Yeah, I think of you know private cellular networks in general have been there for for quite some time already, starting with 4G LTE in some places.
00:25:39
Carlos Perea
But because of the nature of 5G, as I mentioned before, ah LTE was designed to connect people, and 5G was designed to connect industries. ah natively 5G should be the platform for adoption and connectivity for for these companies in terms of you know segments, specific segments, a specific applications.
00:26:03
Carlos Perea
And there are a you know a bunch of use cases that can be mentioned here. but But the reality is that still a challenge for many of the companies to be adopting at scale the yeah the the private cellular network play.
00:26:20
Carlos Perea
And what i what I mean for that is that let's let's think about a little bit of you know the number of of companies that have been deploying you know private cellular networks or private 5G. And we have you know so far probably no more than 500 networks in 5G so far.
00:26:41
Carlos Perea
and and and And these are you know networks that are like really pricey. really challenging to to deploy because you still need to think about a private cellular network as if you were like a mini service provider.
00:26:55
Carlos Perea
This is where the challenge is for many of these industries.
00:26:56
Pablo Tomasi
Mm-hmm.
00:26:59
Carlos Perea
ah The success that I have seen more, you know, expanding more more rapidly is in mining, logistics, ah probably ports, also some sort of manufacturing.
00:27:10
Carlos Perea
you know essentially all those large scale spaces where where you need to have you know predictable and and reliable connectivity where Wi-Fi is not available, where fiber optic is not enough, where land solutions is so also you know limited.
00:27:30
Carlos Perea
So those those are basically the the ones where but the market is actually starting to be you know growing. That said, um The other part of the conversation is where is this kind of technology available for being deployed?
00:27:48
Carlos Perea
And as I mentioned earlier, it starts with a regulation. in In many of the emerging markets, especially in Latin America, many of these emerging markets, they don't even have any kind of regulation for the use of private spectrum, private cellular spectrum.
00:28:06
Carlos Perea
I mean, we have CBRS in the U.S., which is really, really good.
00:28:09
Pablo Tomasi
Yeah.
00:28:10
Carlos Perea
and and And it's proven to be very successful, especially manufacturing. they're They're doing really well. But then you have, except for Brazil, again, who has you know the the industrial spectrum you know layer, where they have been you know doing and and deploying some of these networks, they're doing really well.
00:28:24
Pablo Tomasi
Yeah.
00:28:29
Carlos Perea
But you have, for example, the mining industry in in Australia and the mining industry in South America, like in a country like Chile or Argentina or Peru.
Costly Delays in Emerging Markets
00:28:42
Carlos Perea
It is usually a matter of making a one-year loving due diligence with the government so that they can actually have access to the spectrum. and mean And then the next year is basically doing all the deployment,
00:28:55
Carlos Perea
or d or the you know procurement of the of the network, and then another year for the deployment.
00:28:57
Pablo Tomasi
Mm-hmm.
00:29:00
Carlos Perea
When when it happens, three years have passed. So the technology is already no longer you know really leveraging the ah the the help that it needs to be delivering for for those markets.
00:29:03
Pablo Tomasi
Mm-hmm.
00:29:12
Carlos Perea
So it it is a challenge. I think you know the way the Yet again, the governments are approaching the potential use of private cellular networks.
00:29:23
Carlos Perea
It's very limited in terms of the capacity that this it can be delivered. And this is why companies like Nokia, for example, has been very successful in this market, because what they have done very well is they have been partnering with companies locally in the local ecosystem who have actually access to that spectrum pre-approved in some cases, that they can actually deploy the private cellular networks in a very
00:29:43
Pablo Tomasi
Mm-hmm.
00:29:46
Carlos Perea
quick fashion compared to the standard process. And this is also one of the reasons why some of the service providers, and this is very funny and interesting at the same time, service providers are starting to pitch private cellular networks for the industry when the industry, what they want to do is basically be independent of the of the service provider using private cellular networks. So it is kind of like a catch-22 in that kind.
00:30:10
Carlos Perea
But from the other hand, are there are several let's say, managed service providers or emerging market um you know solution providers that can actually leverage connectivity as private seller network to put on top of that their capacity layer in terms of the developing development stack of the solution they deliver.
00:30:32
Pablo Tomasi
there's definitely a broader trend that I've seen in terms of broadening the definition of what a private network is and telcos are at the center of it, pushing it away from what signing with a memory defies a private network. So definitely interesting to see that.
Avoiding Pitfalls in Emerging Market Tech Expansion
00:30:48
Pablo Tomasi
And the other quick point, so mentioned CBRS, and I thought CBRS is a great development, and hopefully I'm going to be able to get someone to chat about CBRS in another episode. I do think CBRS is in a bit of a sort of tricky situation right now.
00:31:04
Pablo Tomasi
sort of live or die situation because we know that certain actors are lobbying to get the spectrum from used differently and I think that's going to be like a a big battle for private actors but you know that that's for for another story maybe last last question from you know for you and it's like a broader one so based on your experience if there is one single thing
00:31:13
Carlos Perea
Yeah.
00:31:19
Carlos Perea
yeah
00:31:29
Pablo Tomasi
that people who are trying to push innovative tech in emerging markets, they should avoid. What's that mistake, that people should really avoid that?
00:31:42
Carlos Perea
Well, that's a big one and and a difficult one because i i'm I'm immediately thinking about not just one, but several.
00:31:52
Carlos Perea
But I think, you know, I believe when you think about it going into international expansion to emerging markets, the most important piece that you really need to have on hand is who is going to be representing you.
00:32:08
Carlos Perea
You need to know who is the person who is going to be carrying your flag, wearing your T-shirt, and and actually, you know, representing your ethos, representing your, you know, philosophy, your values, and your solution, and, you know, your your business concept and business idea.
00:32:12
Pablo Tomasi
Thank you.
00:32:25
Carlos Perea
this is This is probably the most important part of what you need to do. ah Now, what you don't need to do is you as as as an entrepreneur or as an investor or as a company that is going to these markets, you need to avoid you know the ah those who are selling you know mirrors.
00:32:45
Carlos Perea
There are a lot of those in these markets, unfortunately. and And many of these people, basically, they they say that they have you know the ah connection you know Many years ago, they were calling, I have the Rolodex, now you have your LinkedIn, but it's very interesting because they they claim that they have access to many contacts and people and so on, but at the same time, the you know the reality is what we are just talking about right now.
00:33:01
Pablo Tomasi
Mm-hmm.
00:33:13
Carlos Perea
When you are going into an emerging market, deploying a private cellular network there, either through an ecosystem partner or through a developer or to a solution provider that can actually deliver that, the first thing you need to know is that if your person in representation has actually access to where the regulatory environment is and how you understand that regulatory and the capabilities and boundaries of that regulatory environment.
00:33:37
Carlos Perea
Otherwise, it becomes very challenging. And even though when you understand that, now the point is on the other side, and I'm extending a little bit more here because I have seen that in several companies.
00:33:51
Carlos Perea
The company needs to know if they have the appetite to be flexible and adaptive. into what the emerging market requires. Because not all the companies are actually made the same DNA in terms of adaptation and flexibility. There there may be a huge market opportunity if you are flexible enough.
00:34:09
Carlos Perea
But if you're not, it's recipe for dying in the market.
00:34:15
Pablo Tomasi
that's that's very interesting and and i imagine with a lot of companies the idea is always scalability and replicability but the reality is that you need to keep in mind that everything is is not the same every country and everything is always gonna be much harder than than people think but Carlos thank you very much really appreciate your time you know great great conversation and thanks again for for being who will be on the tech drift
00:34:27
Carlos Perea
Yeah.
00:34:40
Carlos Perea
Well, it's a pleasure to be here, Pablo. Thank you so much for inviting me and hope we have more conversations like this.