Vivo Brazil and Cellwize win “Most Successful Deployment of SON” at SON World 2016
Awarded for ensuring operational excellence and always on connectivity for Vivo’s subscribers and roamers at the 2016 Summer Olympic Games
London, November 1, 2016 – At the SON World Award Ceremony, held in London on October 18th, Vivo, the Brazilian brand for Telefónica in Brazil, the largest network in Latin America with over 90 million subscribers, and Cellwize were awarded “Most Successful Deployment of SON” based on their collaboration at the Summer Olympic Games in Rio, which provided always-on connectivity, smooth video streaming and superior data and voice experience for over 1,000,000 spectators and participants.
Cellwize Self-organizing network (SON) technology has already been providing Vivo with an automated network optimization solution for the Brazilian market, which is considered as one of the largest and most advanced SON deployments globally. The closed-loop solution allocates and diverts network resources quickly, exactly when and where they are needed most. The enhanced mass event technology had been tested prior to the Rio Olympics in popular sporting and music events, which took place in the iconic Maracanã Stadium in Rio de Janeiro.
During the Olympics, Cellwize’s continuous network optimization solution enabled Vivo to handle even the most extreme fluctuations in mobile data traffic, by carrying out automatically over 300,000 provisioning changes in the mobile network with a near real time granularity. To successfully carry out the same amount of changes, in such a dynamic and challenging environment, would have required significant manual intervention. The reduction in engineering man hours required along with the improvements in the operational efficiencies resulted in both OPEX and CAPEX savings, as engineering teams could be focused on more valuable areas regarding radio optimization.
“We are honoured to win the award and pleased with the global recognition of the joint innovative work of Telefonica Brazil and Cellwize, which reinforces our strategic partnership”, commented Juan Carlos Garcia Lopez, Global RAN Director at Global CTO. “Our customers rely on our network for almost every aspect of their digital lives from health, education, commute, business and entertainment, and expect network performance to be flawless and available 24/7”.
“We are proud to win the award and to have partnered with Vivo to ensure an award-winning performance at the Olympic Games, the most lucrative sport event in the world”, said Ofir Zemer, CEO of Cellwize. “The Rio Summer Olympics was an excellent showcase of our market leadership and our advanced technology. We are fully committed to continue developing solutions that drive subscriber’s satisfaction and lasting customer loyalty. Our customer-centric network optimization approach supports digital transformation by enabling operators to offer high value to their subscribers while rolling out new innovative data and digital services”.
