Fragmented telecom landscape

In many emerging markets, the telecom landscape is fragmented with inadequate carrier-level network connectivity and often limited network suppliers. Even at the provincial level, interconnectivity and peering are often low, which makes it difficult to directly connect with local ISPs.

Lack of pricing transparency

Some emerging markets have expensive network tariffs and high bandwidth costs. In general, lack of pricing transparency means that, without a partner with strong local relationships, it’s easy for foreign companies to end up spending a lot of money without knowing the best return on that investment. 

Technical challenges in emerging markets

Operating in emerging markets is often difficult because IT infrastructure, power and water utility infrastructure, and network infrastructure are all typically not as well established as they are in developed markets. This makes getting data center capacity much more difficult and often leads to poor performance. Specific infrastructure challenges in emerging markets include:

Underdeveloped interconnectivity

Underdeveloped interconnectivity into, out of, and within countries includes limited peering between local ISPs and, often, poor last-mile connectivity. Backhaul connectivity into and out of emerging markets is also less well-developed.

Underdeveloped utility infrastructure

Utility power deficiencies make establishing PoPs particularly challenging and even more important for ensuring availability.

Underdeveloped network infrastructure

While some emerging markets, like China, are leading the world in 5G development, in other regions even 4G service is not widely available and 2G service is still common. In those cases, applications must contend with lower network speeds. Many emerging markets have less overall bandwidth, resulting in high bandwidth costs.

As more people simultaneously connect and access digital services, the traffic spikes put a strain on local networks. Public Internet congestion is a top concern for companies doing business in emerging markets as it leads to issues like latency and jitter, which jeopardize user experiences. Because customers are increasingly expecting to access fast and reliable digital services anywhere anytime, companies that fail to provide this will take a hit on their bottom line.

Cloud at the edge

New technology requirements such as higher density network infrastructure and advanced capabilities in compute and storage at the edge play a key role in delivering a premium digital experience. This requires multiple PoPs at the edge within each country—not only in the first-tier cities, which can be relatively well developed, but also in second- and third-tier economies as well.

Many organizations looking to deploy at the edge are leveraging dedicated private cloud environments such as bare metal cloud, where hardware is dedicated to each company, its content, and its users' information. Dedicated private cloud reduces the constraints of public cloud such as latency, and eases obstacles like the “noisy neighbor” effect.

Edge cloud and networking providers with a large number of PoPs around the world—especially in hard to access emerging markets—enable organizations to deploy closer to end users and accelerate their networks to deliver the best digital experience