LIVE FROM GSMA MOBILE 360 LATIN AMERICA, MEXICO: Roberto Hernandez, planning manager for regional operator giant America Movil, said while carriers exist primarily to serve customer needs, this must be matched to technology requirements, because “it will be useless to have a great idea if we don’t have the technology to do it.”

“If we have a good idea, but bad infrastructure, you will start facing problems,” he warned.

Speaking in a keynote session, the executive said that in the creation of new services, a number of technology factors need to be considered, including coverage and broadband speeds. But other elements are also in play, including regulatory risks.

“We need to analyse new business cases, new functionalities, the new services we will include for our users, and which regulations we have to comply with,” Hernandez said. He noted that across Latin America, the company faces “several types of regulatory concepts and visions”.

Operators also now have a number of choices with regard to network development, including the emergence of a raft of technologies to support IoT services. There are downsides to this, including problems reaching scale with devices and management issues.

But, ultimately, it is customer demands that are key: “We have to let them do whatever they want to do, and not just follow what an operator might say,” Hernandez concluded.