Bloomberg Intelligence’s webinar ‘Is Open RAN living up to its disruptive potential?’ gave Rakuten Symphony Chief Marketing Officer Geoff Hollingworth the chance to share his thoughts on how operators can look beyond Open RAN to transform their network deployment, operations and TCO using Automation and AI.
Open RAN has the ability to deliver a wide variety of previously unrecognized benefits to telecom, asserts Rakuten Symphony’s Chief Marketing Officer.
Speaking on a recent Bloomberg Intelligence webinar, Geoff Hollingworth emphasized how Open RAN has already been proven as a means to deliver greater customization in the way networks are deployed and operated, but operators are only beginning to realize the extent of its potential to drastically lower total cost of ownership.
“I can't stress enough that the automation and operational perspective is the driving force for adopting open interfaces; this is exactly the same as what happened with hyperscalers and internet companies,” said Hollingworth. “One of the main things that needs to be transformed in telecom is how we operate our business. Programmable interfaces allow machines to direct the network performance in a very horizontal way. That is what accelerates speed to market for the telecom industry. It allows us to run with a completely different model; you can move into a software-driven operation. That's much more like an internet company than a traditional network company.”
As a highly regulated industry, telecom has traditionally been deploying new services at a relatively slow pace but that could be remedied by Open RAN, Automation and AI, Hollingworth said. “Quite often, the biggest unit of cost in telecom is time,” he said. “When things take a long time, that creates an operational debt. From an asset ownership and supply chain point of view, that’s significant. Telecom can't compete if it moves that slowly. Open RAN moves control from the equipment providers to the people running the network.”
Hollingworth highlighted the operational success of Rakuten Mobile’s network in Japan, which he believes has set a global precedent for effective adoption. The network’s more than 350,000 cells are managed, life-cycled, upgraded and monitored in exactly the same fashion, he said. “There were two aspects of the rollout that are very important to understand. From a time-to-market and an investment perspective, building the network in a traditional manner would not have met our requirements. The decision to go with an open interface-driven deployment came from forcing the speed of rollout. In a very rapid period of time, we saw that if your blueprint is automation-first, by using those open interfaces, you can very quickly deploy, upgrade and roll out networks. You can also start to digitalize all of your processes - data then becomes available to continuously improve how you are running an operation.”
"Automation and operational perspective is the driving force for adopting open interfaces; this is exactly the same as what happened with hyperscalers and internet companies.”
Rakuten Mobile’s willingness to adopt Open RAN has already been a success where it matters most, Hollingworth said. “The biggest impact we've had in Japan is our production costs are significantly lower. We’ve also brought down the cost of telecom services in the market; Japanese consumers are now spending a lot less for their connectivity.”
Those learnings are now being applied to great effect in the ways that Rakuten Symphony supports international operators, Hollingworth said, specifically by replicating the Rakuten Mobile blueprint building Europe’s first Open RAN network in Germany. “Open RAN has gone through another maturity level. For the first time, telecom is actually keeping up with the developments of the outside technology world.”
The panel discussion turned to the ways brownfield operators can successfully adopt Open RAN, and Hollingworth stressed his belief that the industry is now reaching a crucial junction for widespread adoption. “We’ve observed two main approaches within brownfields,” he said. “One is where they want to go completely open with different vendors from day one; they don't want to compromise on that because they are very principle-driven. Others are demanding that the interfaces are open, but they will still source from a ‘familiar’ supply chain, but those interfaces have to be verified; at some point those operators will require those interfaces to be opened once the operational maturity has lifted. I think we are now reaching an inflection point with Open RAN adoption.”
Hollingworth rounded off the session by stressing that Open RAN can also help to alleviate challenges around network performance, namely through the customization of components that can address specific issues. “Nomadic and indoor traffic needs to be addressed,” he said. “When you move nomadic and indoor, you need completely different innovation and solutions around providing coverage. You need a diversity of suppliers that can actually target those different niche deployment areas. ”The global digital world is moving through yet another inflection point as AI matures and secure, privacy centric data will design the next world we live in, Hollingworth added. Telecom is an essential enabler in that journey and by adopting the latest open technologies and approaches it can compete, add value, and general new revenue streams.
