LATAM Telecom

The initiative by Brazilian Operators together with GSMA is groundbreaking in Latin America, not only because of the imminent launch of Personal Instant Messaging in the region with all six operators offering interconnection but also for the fact that these operators are sitting together in a work group to define a product, evaluate vendors and complete a through study before launch. We expect that this will delay even more the launch of the service, which has been evaluated by operators like TIM, VIVO and Claro for at least two years now. However, the approach of this work group, led by Ms Paloma Vivanco of GSMA, will increase the likelihood of a succesful launch and service penetration. The work group met recently in Rio to discuss with different vendors their solutions. Among the vendors presenting were market leaders Acision, Colibira and Comverse, as well as an up and coming Uruguayan company, INI. The only other big IM vendor that always seems to be absent from Latin America init...

As reported previously here (see here , here and here ), six major Brazilian Operators have come together to launch Personal IM and build an operator led mobile IM community in the Brazilian market by Q2 08. Participating operators are Vivo, Claro, Oi, Brasil Telecom, Telemig Amazonia, TIM. These operators are working together with Paloma Vivanco, Market Development Manager for Personal IM of the GSM Association. With this, Brazil leads the effort for deploying Personal Instant Messaging in Latin America. Other efforts include Telefonica Movistar. We have not heard yet from the largest operator in the region, Telcel (Mexico), but surely after this announcement, they will pay close attention to this service which has already been successfully deployed in Europe and Asia.

It appears that operators in Brazil are taking the lead now in deploying Personal Instant Messaging , following GSM Association's technical and commercial framework, which has already been deployed by other operators in Europe and Asia. The most interesting aspect of the efforts done by the largest operators in Brazil, including TIM, Oi, Claro and Vivo is adopting the framework proposed by GSMA, which allows interconnection. Other operators in Europe and Asia are already working with this framework, where interconnection is a key element. Even though operators in Brazil are still in initial stages, in discussions with different vendors, it appears that 2008 will be the year for Personal Instant Messaging in Latin America.