Stockholm-based connectivity provider Arelion, formerly Telia Carrier, is expanding its network infrastructure in Mexico and plans to open two new points-of-presence (PoPs) in the country, Art Kazmierczak, director of business and network development, told BNamericas.
PoPs are critical interconnection infrastructures, an interface and access point from one place to the rest of the network.
The new PoPs will be opened soon in Guadalajara, said Kazmierczak, without disclosing investment figures.
The company owns and operates seven PoPs in Mexico.
Arelion has two in Monterrey, serving Neutral Networks and Equinix’s MO1 datacenter. It also operates two in Querétaro that serve Equinix’s MX1 and KIO Networks’ QRO sites. Another two are in Mexico City, serving KIO’s MEX2 and MEX5 datacenters.
The latest PoP was opened in Mérida this quarter, and it serves AiTelecom. A second will be opened in the city shortly.
“In the past, Mérida was usually served from long-haul capacity to connect to content sources in Miami using subsea cables, but that’s a very expensive capacity. Or it was back-haul through terrestrial routes up into, let’s say, Dallas,” Kazmierczak said, adding that long routes and network deviations tend to downgrade customer experiences.
“We see the Yucatan Peninsula [where Mérida is located] somewhat traditionally underserved, so the investment fits well with our focus of trying to bring connectivity and scale into some of the underserved edge markets on a global basis.”
All the pairs of PoPs are interconnected through a metro fiber and to the company’s backbone network.
Owned by Polhem Infra, a Swedish investment company backed by large pension funds in Sweden, Aurelion claims to own the largest internet backbone in the world.
Dubbed AS1299, it started being built in 1993 and currently stretches 70,000km across Europe, North America and Asia.
This network connects directly to more than 2,300 wholesale customers in over 125 countries, according to the company. Arelion also relies on 450 local access partners with 180 of these located in Latin America.
“Some of our competitors might have cable ownership, but they only offer solutions on their signal cable,” Kazmierczak said.
Arelion has worked since 2018 in building up its presence in Mexico, according to the executive.
Datacenter hotspot Querétaro was a major focal point, where it focused on building a core network to serve the local ecosystem of cloud, media and application providers.
It has also doubled down on cross-border connectivity. In April, Arelion activated a new expansion of its US East-to-West coast network project, a long-haul connectivity spanning from Dallas and El Paso to the West coast through Phoenix, San Diego and Los Angeles.
The expansion also provided new routes to serve Mexican companies.
Most of the opportunities Arelion sees in Latin America involve internet service providers, cable operators, cloud and gaming firms.
Kazmierczak said the company is now studying a medium-term expansion of its own proprietary network to other countries in the region.
Where it does not have its own proprietary network, Arelion partners with companies that have established routes while giving them access to its global backbone.
“We don’t have a lot of local operations in Latin America. In countries such as Colombia, Panama, or Honduras, where Arelion does not have proprietary network or fiber, the company works with a local provider to help us take the IP network closer to the end-user,” Edison de Leon, Arelion’s regional director for Latin America and the Caribbean, told BNamericas.
One such recent deal was with Latin American network provider Gold Data.
Unveiled in March, the partnership expanded the reach of both companies in the region to include customers in Mexico, Guatemala, Panama, Dominican Republic Costa Rica.
Gold Data’s network will facilitate Arelion’s reach, delivering services including Wavelengths (DWDM), Ethernet, Cloud Connect and IP Transit, through AS1299.
It also gives Arelion access to more datacenters in the region. Besides, Gold Data’s backbone connects more than 16 submarine cables between Latin America and the US.
“There are quite a few new cables [in Latin America], a lot of people who have ownership of portions of cables, a lot of different diverse routes we can leverage,” Kazmierczak said.
