Vivo Leads the LTE Market in Brazil with IP RAN

Brazil, the largest country in South America, has a reputation as "the Kingdom of Football," and is one of the BRIC countries. There are four major mobile operators in Brazil. Vivo, one of the four operators, seized the opportunities of 3G and LTE development to expand its networks, boosted its presence in the market, and outperformed its rivals in Brazil.

Background

Vivo was established in 2002 as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Telefonica, which is a multinational telecommunications giant. Boasting TDMA, CDMA, GSM, WCDMA, and FD-LTE, Vivo is a well-known mobile brand in Latin America with a market share of 30.36 percent.
Vivo built a nationwide GSM network and a WCDMA network in 2006 and 2008 respectively. In 2010, it developed a marketing strategy of "providing high-speed and innovative data services", and gradually dominated the 3G market. In 2014, Vivo began to deploy LTE networks.

Challenges

In 2006, Vivo deployed nationwide 2G (GSM) mobile networks, and leased a large quantity of bandwidth to launch mobile backhaul services. The evolution of 3G technologies increased the cost of bandwidth, so Vivo began to deploy its transmission backbone and Metro-Ethernet (ME) in 2010. From 2010 to 2013, Vivo cooperated with ZTE to construct the transmission backbone and ME networks. In addition, it chose ZTE to build a large number of PTNs in the southern and northern states of Brazil to provide high-value services, such as 2G, 3G, and leased line.
With the large-scale commercial deployment of LTE worldwide in 2013, in view to be consistent with the TEF headquarters in technical concepts, Vivo opened a tender for IP/MPLS-based IP RAN/ME networks to carry LTE services.
Vivo has many PTNs that have just been put into commercial use, but they can't meet LTE or fixed broadband requirements. By analyzing the existing network and forecasting further trends, Vivo determined to upgrade the PTNs and build IP RANs so as to reduce investment.

Requirements

To upgrade the existing PTNs and build new IP RANs, the major requirements are as follows:
● Smooth evolution: The existing commercial PTNs can be utilized and appropriately transformed to reduce the CAPEX and OPEX. In addition, the PTNs can be upgraded to IP/MPLS to keep pace with technological changes.
● Multi-service bearer: Vivo mainly provides mobile services. With the withdrawal of SDH/MST from existing networks and the evolution of PTN to IP/MPLS, IP RAN networks will carry high-value and multi-service voice, data traffic, and leased line services.
● High reliability networks: In a competitive market, network quality is the top priority to win a good reputation from customers. As a market leader, Vivo tried to improve KPIs, guarantee voice, big data and high-priority services, and meet carrier-class switching requirements for bearer networks in case of any failure.
● Efficient time transfer: MBH sets clear requirements for clock and time performance. Currently, GPS is still the mainstream. However, labor costs and equipment room rentals are rising, and GPS is not available in some scenarios, such as subways, skyscrapers, and outdoor CSG. Therefore, operators are desperate for clock and time synchronization on mobile backhaul networks.

Proposal

In 2013, Vivo invited a bid for IP/MPLS-based ME networks. To select a strategic partner, Vivo took part in the PTN + CE test for LTE, which was initiated by ZTE. Meanwhile, it studied ZTE's IP RAN products, such as 6120S, 6150 and M6000-S, and major solutions, such as the IP/MPLS L3VPN to edge and IP RAN solution. These solutions not only fully satisfy the requirements of LTE, but also protect the investment of Vivo. Finally, Vivo chose ZTE as its partner to upgrade the commercial PTNs.

Features and Advantages

With the PTN technology, which features low cost, easy O&M and high availability, Vivo constructed a large number of PTNs to carry 2G/3G services, and prevailed in the 3G era. As LTE evolves, Vivo set an IP/MPLS technology roadmap. In this context, ZTE developed new products, guided Vivo in PTN + CE transformation and upgrade, which eventually evolved to IP/MPLS, and built new IP RANs for Vivo.
● Mature and sound L3VPN (HoVPN): The L3VPN solution is deployed on IP RANs worldwide. With ZTE's support, Vivo has deployed nearly 100,000 terminals on mobile backhaul networks globally, meeting customer requirements for narrowband and broadband services access. This solution enables Vivo to take a huge lead in the 4G era to further expand its market share by deploying networks rapidly.
● Flexibly evolving PTN + CE: To win the competition in the market, Vivo brought massive LTE services to PTN networks. Without affecting the existing 2G and 3G bearing services, Vivo adopted the PTN + CE solution for LTE service by introducing the M6000-S as the CE and core device in the IP RAN network. This network architecture ensures a smooth upgrade from PTN to IP/MPLS.
● Comprehensive protection against faults: ZTE's IP RAN solution detects optical link and equipment faults through BFD for everything, implements LDP FRR in ring networks through remote-LFA, and troubleshoots equipment through VPN/PW FRR. Therefore, Vivo takes this solution to reduce the fault convergence time to less than 500 ms, and perform carrier-class switching protection on all services.

Conclusion

With ZTE's professional team and rapid deployment, the IP RAN gained recognition from Vivo. Currently, this solution has been widely used by Vivo in the southern and northern states of Brazil and has won customers' trust due to its high-speed and excellent performance. What's more, Vivo adopted this solution to transform from a mobile operator to a full-service operator.