Lumen Technologies doubles the number of Latin American customers using edge services ahead of divestiture
Lumen Technologies, formerly known as CenturyLink, said it has doubled the number of Latin American customers adopting their edge computing services in 2021. Lumen Technologies noted the growing interest in Lumen’s Edge Computing services came from industries requiring low latency such as entertainment, content creation, e-commerce, and public cloud service providers.
Lumen Technologies said it has focused on expanding its footprint in Latin American countries through continuous investments and various acquisitions to deliver high performance even when faced with peak demands as these markets, which have traditionally trailed North American companies in the shift towards a digital economy. During 2021, Lumen expanded its regional data centers including facilities in São Paulo (Brazil), Buenos Aires (Argentina), Quito (Ecuador), Cali (Colombia) and Lima (Peru) resulting in an approximate 12% increase in installed capacity across the Latin American countries, th company said.
As over-the-top (OTT) video streaming platforms have gained momentum in Latin American markets, the demand for CDN capacity to deliver high-performance web applications and ultra-high definition (UHD) video streaming has increased as well. Lumen’s said it deployed additional points of presence (PoPs) in 15 net-new Latin American cities while also deploying 878 kilometers of optical fiber and doubled their peering capacity with other providers.
Improving the business ahead of the exit
The improvements to LatAm assets in the Lumen network come as the company performed quite a transformation in 2021. The company announced it was selling off its Latin American business interests for $2.7B to Stonepeak, an investment firm last year. As part of the deal, both companies would offer reciprocal reselling and network arrangements; after the completion of the transaction, new customers in the region will work directly with the newly independent company.
Laurinda Pang, President Global Customer Success for Lumen, recently addressed the divestiture at the Morgan Stanley 2022 Technology, Media & Telecom conference.
“We have made the announcement with regards to Latin America, we expect that transaction to close in the beginning of the third quarter of the year (2022). So the entirety of that region will go to Stonepeak, so that’s all of the physical network assets, that the subsea assets that connect the region, as well as obviously all of the people as part of that business,” she said.
Other developments in 2021 in the region included adding direct connectivity to four new cloud computing providers’ data centers and a focus on increasing security levels in SD-WAN solutions through implementing the SASE strategy (Secure Access Service Edge architecture).
“We aim to deliver robust, high-quality, maximum-security services that allow our customers to benefit from limitless growth,” said Lumen’s Leonardo Barbero. “We are constantly keeping an eye on trends to anticipate needs and provide cutting-edge solutions,” he concluded.
Article Topics
CDN | edge computing | interconnection | Latin America | Lumen | networking | OTT | peering | Stonepeak
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