MTN is developing a software-defined wide-area network (SD-WAN) and is re-purposing thousands of sites across the country to harness narrow band internet of things (NB-IoT) as the rollout of turnkey solutions for enterprise customers gathers pace.
Giovanni Chiarelli, chief technology and information officer at MTN SA, says solutions like these are opening the door to an array of exciting new opportunities for businesses in today’s fast-paced digital economy.
An NB-IoT network is a low power WAN (LPWAN) radio technology standard that provides strong coverage over large areas and enables wide-range connectivity of new IoT devices and services. SDN (software-defined networking) technology, meanwhile, connects enterprise networks — including branch offices and data centers — over large geographic distances.
MTN has invested more than R40-billion in the past four years in building its network, and Chiarelli says this investment is providing a powerful platform from which new solutions can be rolled out, both now and into the future.
“This investment is proof of our vision which is translated into exceptional performance numbers and improved network experience for our customers,” he says. “Technology advancement is an important part of our business and the numbers we are looking at investing in the next few years are in the same ballpark as what we have spent in the past.
“Not many companies in South Africa or on the continent are investing as much as we do in technology today. We are very serious about technology excellence as the catalyst that helps deliver exceptional solutions for our customers.”
When companies extend networks over greater distances and across multiple carriers’ networks, they face operational complexities, including network challenges, delay in transmitting data and even service outages. The SD WAN network will counter these constraints, by allowing companies to extend their computer networks over large distances and to connect remote branch offices to data centers and each other. It will also deliver the applications and services required to perform business functions.
“SD WAN is one of the new ways of building resilient enterprise networks. The decision to take this route is a response to increasing demand from some of our customers who called on us to build high performing networks that can support their IoT ambitions and digitisation journey,” says Chiarelli.
This is a programmable network that supports quality of service by giving bandwidth priority to the most critical applications. This may include dynamic path selection and sending an application on a faster link. “The SD WAN network gives us an opportunity to orchestrate and balance the cloud services our clients buy from different suppliers.”
MTN SA plans to enable each of its network sites with NB-IoT capability – not just in densely populated areas. “All our sites will be enabled with NB-IoT in the lowest possible frequency to give the broadest coverage. We expect to have the full dispersion of NB-IoT on our entire network footprint,” says Chiarelli.