Brazil’s Edge UOL advances with private network projects

Brazilian technology infrastructure company Edge UOL is structuring private networks for more than 10 corporates, COO Rodrigo Lobo told BNamericas.

Founded in 2021, the group chose dedicated connectivity formats, together with decentralized data structures, as its core business focus. 

Overall, prospects are positive and the pipeline is growing, but it will still be a while before these networks mature and become scalable in the country, according to Lobo.

“We are working on large private network projects, but it’s a cycle that takes longer to implement. The clients we’re working with are large ones and they want to know more about this technology and architecture, how this translates into concrete results,” he said, without giving details about the customers.

Lobo argues that it is still necessary to work on “evangelizing” the market about the potential of these architectures, not least when companies are increasingly looking to prioritize investments and be selective in expenditures.

Edge UOL is a spin-off of UOL’s former IT division Compass. By inheriting most of Compass’ base, Edge UOL kicked off with a relatively large set of customers.

At present, it serves around 500 mostly mid-sized and large companies from the financial, retail and industry verticals, among others, according to Lobo.

The company does not provide infrastructure, but rather the network integration and orchestration parts of the business. Automation and tech services over IT are its main business proposition. 

“5G comes all virtualized. With that, telecom and IT have converged, just as OT and IT are merging,” said Lobo. “That's what we're focusing on.”

This year will be marked by growth in projects in private networks leveraged by 5G and the cloud, according to the COO.

Ultimately, it is the private network, he said, that will pave the way for edge computing and intelligent devices (IoT), the two other main bets of the company.

One of the strategies to grow in edge is to leverage on tower companies to attach modular/container datacenters, also known as micro- or far-edge datacenters, next to these sites. The company is already working with towercos and neutral networks to do that, said Lobo.

Earlier this year, Edge UOL implemented for UOL the first Outposts, the edge computing structure of Amazon Web Services (AWS), in Latin America and it is now working with a major bank in Brazil for a similar deployment.

The company also has cloud partnerships with VMware. In networks, the firm works with Ericsson, Nokia and Celplan, among others. 

Edge UOL also has other partners for solutions involving 5G, edge and IoT, including non-proprietary technologies (open RAN) and those based on Linux.

Elsewhere in Latin America, Edge UOL has clients for managed services, but not in 5G, edge or IoT, said Lobo. The focus, for now, is mostly Brazil.

The executive did not provide hard figures, but says the company is increasing investments mainly in personnel, above all for training, and in new tech partnerships.

"We have been growing in revenues and investing in training, 'evangelization' and open networks. We want to open this market."