Peru's Optical Networks plans two new datacenters

Peru’s Optical Networks plans to invest in two new local datacenters to meet growing demand for business services, bringing its total to six units.

“We have plans to build another datacenter on the border between the two main districts of Lima, San Borja and San Isidro,” Augusto Cuadros, Optical Networks datacenter and cloud business unit manager, told BNamericas.

One datacenter, currently under construction, will start operations by end-2022.

Cuadros added that another datacenter for recovery purposes will be built in Lima.

The company recently announced that its fifth datacenter, in Santa Catalina, received TIA Rated 3 certification. Overall investment, including in certificates and equipment, reached US$6mn. The unit is currently using 50% of its capacity and should reach 70% by end-year.

Another of Optical Networks’ datacenters is using half its capacity to provide telecom equipment and services and half to provide services for companies. The unit in Tacna offers mainly disaster recovery services, with outlets in Peru and Chile.

The company uses its own land and executes greenfield projects on its own.

Cuadros said Optical Networks could invest in smaller edge datacenters in the medium term. The company is evaluating modular, prefabricated and stacked container models, but has not yet decided.

Potential locations for the units the company calls development poles are Trujillo, Piura and Chiclayo. “It is very likely that we will put a datacenter in some of these locations because companies are demanding [services],” said Cuadros.

Optical Networks is a unit of Win, which focuses on residential fiber optics services, while Optical Networks focuses on the corporate sector, especially large and medium-sized companies.

“We had the connectivity layer covered, but we needed to cover the service layer. That is why we evolved to a datacenter [company] and now we are going to evolve to datacenter services,” said Cuadros.

He added the company will offer comprehensive application monitoring layers, operating system management and specific purpose applications, as well as databases.

Alliances were forged with VMware, Veeam, Intel, IBM, Microsoft, and Huawei. In addition, it markets public cloud solutions.

"There is a package of services for medium-sized companies that is a native market for us," said Cuadros. He claimed the company has "more midsize than large business customers," but measured by billing, large businesses account for about 60% of revenue.

Optical Networks aims to bill US$10mn this year in the datacenter and cloud segments.

Demand will come from in the finance sector, leveraged by regulatory and education requirements, Cuadros said.

FIBER OPTICS

Optical Networks has 4,500km of fiber optics only in Lima city and 7,000km nationally. "In the province we will have about 500km of fiber, and this is increasing month by month," said Cuadros.

Fiber deployment is in line with Win’s operations.

Cuadros said two projects to extend fiber coverage are on standby until the return on investment can be clarified.

One of these projects focuses on south Lima.

"A large-scale project such as deploying the fiber network requires pooling efforts, making calculations and achieving a return that is attractive for the company," he said.