csps

In this episode of The 5G Factor, our series that focuses on all things 5G, the IoT, and the ecosystem as a whole, Ron Westfall is joined by colleague and fellow analyst Todd R. Weiss for a look at the top 5G developments and what’s going on that caught their eye.

Their conversation focused on:

AT&T Delivers Solid Q3 2023. AT&T delivered strong results in the third quarter of 2023 with solid 5G and fiber subscriber growth. The company also posted healthy year-over-year (YoY) increases in service and broadband revenues, driving higher profitability. Key highlights include AT&T reporting revenues of $30.4 billion, up 1% YoY. This increase primarily reflects higher Mobility, Mexico, and Consumer Wireline revenues, partly offset by lower Business Wireline revenues. Notably, AT&T’s mid-band 5G spectrum now covers more than 190 million people, on track to reach 200 million people or more with mid-band 5G by year-end. They analyze why they see AT&T establishing the foundation for durable, long-term growth due to key factors such as delivering 468,000 postpaid phone net adds with continued strong ARPU growth and historically low levels of churn. Plus, AT&T’s mobility service revenues were up 3.7%, achieving the company’s best-ever Mobility operating income.

Vodafone and Snam Expand Collaboration. Vodafone, specifically Vodafone Italia, is expanding its collaboration with Snam, Europe’s leader in natural gas. The duo is working to develop the first hybrid 5G mobile private network (MPN) in the natural gas sector, bringing more reliable and secure connectivity to 23 of Snam’s plants. According to Vodafone, the hybrid infrastructure will improve 4G and 5G coverage within the facilities, but also for the local population via the surrounding public network. We examine how the alliance is combining the benefits of public 5G and private 5G that seek to guarantee high levels of performance, availability and reliability and shows that Vodafone’s 5G network infrastructure is essential to delivering the ultra-broadband, low latency, security, and the ability to collect an exceptional amount of data across the Snam energy network footprint.

T-Mobile Sustains 5G Pacesetting in Q3 2023. T-Mobile reported third quarter (Q3) 2023 results, raising 2023 guidance again. Service revenue of $15.9 billion grew 4% year-over-year (YoY), including Postpaid service revenue of $12.3 billion, which grew 6% YoY. In Q3 2023, T-Mobile delivered breakthrough postpaid account and customer net additions as well as record low postpaid phone churn, which provided the basis for the company to claim industry-leading service revenue and postpaid service revenue. They discuss how they expect T-Mobile to attain its latest raise in 2023 guidance as the company is consistently outperforming its key rivals across the topmost mobile network service categories, consisting of financial, technical, and customer attraction and retention milestones, and why it is the 5G service provider pacesetter by executing relentlessly on its portfolio development objectives and market vision.

On this episode of The 5G Factor, part of The Futurum Tech Webcast, Shelly Kramer is joined by fellow analyst and colleague Ron Westfall to talk about 5G network builds and some of the things 5G network decision-makers should consider when they are focused on things like streamlined builds, operational capabilities that provide AI-powered intelligence and end to end automation, along with all things sustainability, which is a key business focus today. And when we mention sustainability, that includes sustainability in operations, sustainable systems overall, and sustainable architecture.

Thinking all things 5G networks means that we’re going to take a deep dive into Juniper’s Cloud Metro offering and the role it is playing in all things related to 5G network builds.

Our conversation included the following touchpoints:

* What is Cloud Metro and why is it important to the 5G ecosystem? 

* Juniper positions Cloud Metro as being all about Volume, Velocity, and Variety

* New applications shifting service delivery into the Metro

* Metro becomes the "New Edge" with big growth potential

* The expanded Cloud Metro solution

* Cloud Metro: New category for sustainable business growth

* How you can get to sustainable business growth with traditional Retro Metro

* Juniper Paragon Automation as a Service

Sustainability authority, John Elkington, says the key to a sustainable future is for companies to change their views on capitalism. 

Well, it isn’t the technology behind it, it’s the disruptive business, operating and financial models that it creates. And I like to see how the industry will respond to this disruption. 

And let’s face it, OpenRAN has been riding pretty high on the hype curve, so I want to understand what it will take for it to live up to that hype. 

Today’s guest is uniquely suited to help me understand this. He has spent the past couple years working on the groundbreaking Rakuten OpenRAN deployment in Japan, so he’s seen first hand the benefits OpenRAN can deliver - and the challenges faced when deploying it. 

In addition to that, he works for a company that, on the surface, looks like it would be one of the main companies disrupted by this new model, so I want to understand why they are embracing it. 

He is Terry McCabe, Nokia’s Chief Technology Officer for Asia Pacific & Japan, where he spearheads Nokia’s 5G technology strategy. And yes, we’ll talk a bit about 5G - and 6G - as well. 

Show Notes:

01:30 How does Nokia define OpenRAN?

04:10 OpenRAN has the potential to disrupt how mobile operators will purchase their networks in the future - yet that didn’t stop Nokia from being an early supporter of the OpenRAN Alliance.  What was the rationale behind that decision?

05:30 The first major OpenRAN network deployment was Rakuten in Japan - and Nokia was one of the vendors involved in it. What were your major learnings from this deployment?

09:30 What are Nokia’s plans for the next phase of OpenRAN?

10:45 It hasn’t always been smooth sailing for OpenRAN, not least when Nokia and some other vendors halted their participation in the OpenRAN Alliance due to concerns raised by the US government about IP protection. That has since been resolved, but is this a sign of the challenges OpenRAN will face in the future?

12:00 When some operators, like AT&T, talk about their plans for OpenRAN, they state their initial deployments will be for in-building and rural coverage. Does that mean we won’t see it deployed in city centres?

13:15 What does the ideal OpenRAN customer look like?

14:15 OpenRAN and its potential role in Private 5G

15:30 Who / What / Where should we be keeping an eye on for the next phase of growth for OpenRAN?

17:30 Some people believe that it’s too late for OpenRAN to be leveraged for 5G network deployments, meaning that it’s real impact would be on 6G deployments. Would you agree?

18:30 What are the Critical Success Factors for OpenRAN to live up to the hype?

19:30 What are some of the risks OpenRAN faces (e.g. energy consumption, openness)

21:30 How do you think the OpenRAN Alliance will evolve - and what impact will the hyperscalers have on the industry?

23:35 What’s your prediction for how OpenRAN will evolve in the near term (12-24 months)?

26:00 What are the Best & Worst Case Scenarios for OpenRAN in the medium to long term (5-10 years)?

28:00 Beyond OpenRAN, what else excites you about the future of connectivity?

(spoiler alert: 6G, Enterprise Solutions, Private Networks)

The evolution to SaaS will require CSP’s to change the way they do business. Nokia’s Mark Bunn says it’s about demonstrating value that will keep your customers coming back. 

For this vignette of a recent episode of the Futurum Tech Webcast, part of the 5G Factor series, analysts Ron Westfall and Shelly Kramer explore Nokia’s digital twin technology and its potential to significantly boost European communications service providers (CSPs) a significant revenue boost.

Their discussion covered:

• Why digital twin technology is gaining broader market acceptance and is directly applicable to 5G network design and builds.
• The role of Nokia’s digital twin solution for augmenting 5G network development in areas such as beamforming optimization and the selection of optimum bean sets in 3D recreated environments.
• The market impact of Nokia’s assertion that for a European CSP, using a digital twin, Nokia’s solution provides for 44% higher revenue than traditional methods.

Ron and Shelly see Nokia’s digital twin technology has holding great promise for European CSPs as well as CSPs in other regions and can advance not only the technical demands of 5G network development, such as optimized beamforming, but also financial objectives (i.e., bean counting).    

The SIM card is transforming to eSIM and then iSIM. Charles Reed Anderson and Thomas Hsu talk about how CSPs need to evolve to join in.  

In this episode of the Futurum Tech Webcast, Interview Series, I’m joined by Chad Andrews, the Global Leader for Telecom, Media and Entertainment at the IBM Institute for Business Value. Our conversation today focuses on the changes 5G and edge computing will bring to our digital economy, and we also take a look at IBM Institute for Business Value’s recent study The End of Communications Services as We Know Them?

That is a bold survey headline, but for those of us in the industry, we know the impact that 5G and edge computing will have on the digital economy moving forward will be disruptive to say the least. And I know that sentiment was echoed in IBM’s findings in the survey.

 The End of Communications Services as We Know Them? digs deeper into a trend we’ve all been seeing – which is that communication service providers will miss out on the value that 5G and edge computing can provide unless they adapt today.

The IBM study surveyed 500 global telecommunications executives in 21 countries — so it’s a decent sample set that gives some insight into where the industry is headed. Chad and I discussed some of the findings of the report. These include:

• For CSPs to find true value in 5G and edge computing, they must adopt cloud native digital services, applications, and solutions.
• Along with cloud native platforms and applications, CSPs will need to make strategic operational decisions in order to compete long-term against cloud native companies.
• Platforms that are already established at scale will super the hypergrowth of the decade.

We also discussed some of the reasons the IBM Institute for Business Value is predicting the global digital economy will grow two to three times this decade, as well as the implications this will have on businesses across different sectors. The graphic below is from The End of Communications Services as We Know Them?

We discuss key takeaways from our recent survey and research report, ‘The BSS-to-cloud journey: Powering innovation across the digital value chain” done in partnership with Ericsson. We discussed the strategic commitment of CSPs to a multi-cloud strategy, the competitive advantages that each of the major cloud providers offer, and which cloud design principles are CSPs identifying as the most important. Plus, we address the AWS announcement that extends its long-term partnership with Ericsson by certifying Ericsson’s Telecom BSS on AWS and why it is a high impact move across the telco industry.

Download the report today: report The BSS-to-cloud journey: Powering innovation across the digital value chain.

In this episode of the Futurum Tech Webcast, Interview Series, we’re taking the conversation to LinkedIn Live, and focusing on the BSS-to-Cloud journey that so many communication service providers (CSPs) are currently exploring. I was joined by my colleague here at Futurum, fellow analyst Ron Westfall, and also joined by Miriam Deasy and Rick Mallon from Ericsson. In our conversation, we focused on the findings of a research report that our team at Futurum partnered with Ericsson to develop: BSS-to-Cloud Journey: Powering Innovation Across the Digital Value Chain.

For CSPs, embracing customer-centric business operations and digital engagement allow them to monetize on improved customer experiences and support business models for current or future innovations. But sometimes all of that is much easier said than done and knowing where to start can be challenging — thus the impetus for our research.

From a strategic perspective, CSP decision-makers must recognize the most important considerations that are driving the BSS-to-cloud journey, and that’s what we set out to both map out in the research report, as well as to have a discussion around on this episode of our Futurum Tech Webcast Interview Series show.

Miriam and Rick introduced themselves and shared a little about their roles at Ericsson, and we then jumped in. Here are some of the things our discussion covered:

• What the Ericsson team is seeing, from their vantage point in Ericsson Digital BSS across their customer base in terms of challenges customers face.
• What different approaches they are seeing on the customer side (and what can be learned from this).
• How Ericsson manages to cater to this massive amount of variation across their customer base and prospects, as well as in product development.
• What advice and insights can be offered to customers as they progress through their cloud journeys.
• The reality of continuous improvement/continuous development (CI/CD) play, and the role it plays for overall success.
• The top goals and objectives customers have identified, either to achieve or fix, as they progress in their cloud journeys.
• The top challenges customers shared that they face in their BSS-to-cloud journeys and what can be learned from that.

We wrapped up our discussion with a look at what the Ericsson team feels is working well for their customers, as well as a conversation around how CSPs can increase the likelihood of successful outcomes, and we closed our show with thoughts on what CSPs can do and/or focus on as they progress on their BSS cloud journeys.

5G requires additional CAPEX investments, and it’s arriving at a time when telecom companies are feeling the pinch. But to Salesforce’s Steve Mannel, the real ROI for 5G won’t come from consumers -- it will come from building an enterprise ecosystem.

The FANGS are out and telecom companies don’t want to get bitten. But as giants like Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, and Google build their next generation services on 5G, how does a telecom company go from “dumb pipe” to “smart collaborator?” Stephen Rose of Bell Labs says the industry has to sharpen its teeth. 

Embedding telecoms into post-pandemic healthcare: https://ftr.bz/telehealth/pod 

Making 5G voice pay: https://ftr.bz/5Gvoice/pod

COVID-19 has created a massive spike in global internet traffic. Telecoms which prepared for a 50% increase year over year are seeing that growth in just the last month. How will this critical infrastructure cope? Nokia’s Rafael De Fermín has answers.