5G: The Universal Structure for Service Providers, On-Demand Nov 5th
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Session Abstract - This session will explore how a common naming strategy is playing a larger role in the evolution of networks while continuing to support ongoing network operations and maintenance. The session will cover the operations and monetization challenges service providers face in their deployment and support of business strategies involving 5G, edge computing, and virtualized networking; The role of a universal structure in the deployment, interconnection, and management of the physical and virtual assets enabling new 5G services; The use case examples of how a universal structure has been used by service providers in the past and how it can reduce time to revenue for innovation investments while offering a competitive advantage in the race to expand into key markets.
Executive Speakers:
George Cray - Senior Vice President - Information Solutions Products & Services, iconectiv
David Lu, VP, Software Defined Network Platform & Systems, AT&T
Full Transcription
Abe Nejad: In this session will cover the operations and monetization challenges, service providers face, in their deployment and support of business strategies involving 5g, edge computing, and virtualized networking, and the role of the universal structure in the deployment, interconnection, and management of a physical and virtual asset enabling new 5g services.
This session will also explore the use case examples of how a universal structure has been used by service providers in the past and how it can reduce time to revenue for innovation investments while offering a competitive advantage in the race to expand into key markets. Joining this telco session, are David Lu he's vice president of software-defined network platforms and systems at AT&T. We also have George Cray, he's senior vice president products and services at Iconectiv, and gentlemen, welcome to the program.
George Cray: Thank you.
David Lu: Thank you very much. I'm very glad to be here this morning.
Abe Nejad: Well it's great to have you, David, George we just did a session not too long ago earlier this morning, so it's good to have you back on. David, if you don't mind, I'm going to start with you. Clearly, AT&T has invested over a hundred billion dollars in wireless and wire line networks that since 2016 and for many of your business customers, you're really marrying 5g along with edge compute technologies to deliver these new, unique, and really secure experiences. So since this is the critical part of your growth and really differentiation in the industry, how are you able to roll out these services as efficiently and quickly as possible?
David Lu: Yes. A great question thank you let me just start by saying this, in my view, 5g is truly a software-defined network in many ways such as network slicing and network automation. With new 5g and transport being completely recalibrated to deliver enhanced performance, priorities, privacy, and security to drive many new service models, operational improvements, and savings across the industries. When you think about 5g roll out, it is not just the 5g, the RAN elements its radio rollout. It is also fiber to cell sites, both the front haul, the backhaul and edge, the centralized, the virtualized, the RAN, and the new 5g core. All of which will add more complexity and skill required implementation, but this will present new opportunities for AI-based analytics and automation.
AT&T has been a leader to drive the standardized, base the 5g implementation in the industry and in the world. We launched the first commercial mobile 5g services in the US in late 2018. Investment is not just on the 5g spectrum but also on the end-to-end network infrastructure. AT&T's success has really been on consistent 5g strategy, top priority investment, a holistic view on how to plan forecast, engineering and operating
Abe Nejad: And George anything to add.
George Cray: Yeah, definitely. I mean, I think as David, teed up 5g is clearly an enabler, maybe even an accelerator of the digital economy, from an Iconectiv perspective our true ops common language provides AT&T strong foundation for the complex connectivity issues the interoperability needs, as they accelerate the rollout. As David said, it is very complex, it is very flexible and with the flexibility comes all this complexity that needs to be managed. It’s also, as David was describing, it's really not a Greenfield deployment. You are leveraging a lot of existing, network resources as you're going through this transition. So it usually involves augmenting existing network components, with new technology and adding in many more, service-ready locations. Cause this is about getting more endwidth more capability out to the edges of the network.
So Iconectiv as a software and service provider to AT&T and many other service providers we’ve been evolving our common language, services offering to stay up to date with the ever-evolving technology that's being deployed in the network.
Abe Nejad: So, George, I mean, you touched on this just a second ago, but let's go a little bit further. So recognizing the industry's focus on 5g and its play for really all key verticals, what is being done to support service providers and really collaborate with them as they deploy public and private 5g rollouts?
George Cray: Yeah, as we started describing, it's critical that we support the accelerated roll-outs of 5g so that we can support AT&T and how they want to introduce the technology and upgrade their network. Iconectiv common language, make sure that service providers' lives are much easier as they're introducing this. And the key is we're providing foundational elements that go into the network and support for those foundational elements. So 5g is allowing AT&T to get so much more bandwidth and services to the edge of the network. This means many more common language locations get put into, that database. We have support for intelligent routers, that are gonna enable multi-access edge computing and cloud applications, and obviously support these very flexible architectures that are being deployed.
Common language provides these foundational elements that allows AT&T to more rapidly deploy new services, which allows them to realize revenue, much more quickly. So being able to extend and augment their existing processes is really, an important element when operating in a hybrid environment.
Abe Nejad: So David's staying on 5g. Can you tell me a little bit more about, how having a common data management infrastructure is helping really accelerate 5g rollouts?
David Lu: Yes. Sure. This is a great question. In my view also, this is not a what-if or if we can do it, it is a must. We have been refocused on our common information modeling, including naming, data cataloging, and what we call common data dictionary and data infrastructure. Some of the examples I can quote is including a single network inventory, which remapped this into our future consolidated network inventory and topology database. This work is ongoing as we speak.
Working with AT&T's chief data officer team using common data infrastructure to store the massive amount of the performance and event data. Okay. Currently, the setup of the system, I support stores trillions of the measurements, each month. And this is equivalent to almost 30 million measurements in a single second going into our systems. So without the common data infrastructure, everyone applies different technology. It is not even manageable. These efforts will help us to accelerate our implementation of our target state architecture for providing software and data as a service, meeting our network, operation analytics, and automation needs, and continue to raise the bar on how effectively the software development team can do our work in supporting our growth.
Abe Nejad: So David, I'm going to stay with you just for, unless George, you wanted to add anything to that.
George Cray: Well, yeah, I believe, common language plays a big role in these foundational elements that David was describing. So we have continuously evolved as the industry needs and technological advancements have changed. What really hasn't changed relative to common language is the foundational tenant for which we created it, which was to simply seamlessly and securely create, manage and operate network infrastructure. We do this, what common language has, is a common name for locations, equipment connections, and service functions. We then have a common view of these network functions that can go across all of the internal teams within AT&T, but as well, expanding outside, to vendors and partners. And then we have a common way in which we optimize processes through automated operations so that carriers can manage technology changes through rapid integration, deployment, and rollout of services.
So AT&T is really using common language constructs throughout, they've been using it, for decades. Now they're using it to define, customer prem equipment that supports intelligent routers placed at the edge to do things like, multi-access edge computing and cloud applications, much of which we talked about. There’s the network slicing, which enterprises rely on companies like AT&T and their network to ensure that they can have highly secure and very fast, access. And all of these common attributes are agreed to by the industry. It helps minimize complexities and ensures interoperability in a multi-vendor environment.
Abe Nejad: David back to you. So are there things that others in the ecosystem let's say equipment manufacturers can be doing or really are doing now? In this regard, let's say for example, for support for APIs.
David Lu: So yes, this is an excellent topic. To my view okay. It is very, very important to partner with our industry partners, especially the equipment, the hardware, software product providers to drive the industry standards and its implementations. Many times the de facto standards via industry Alliance, such as TM and foreign open APIs. AT&T is a founding member signing the manifesto. we are sponsoring this obviously for a very specific purpose as George well-articulated in this complex ecosystem, the common language, the common understanding, and a common data model, the common information model, how we exchange information from the equipment, from the control unit to the back of the network, in our process for automation, activation monitoring all the end to end this ecosystem. Without some sort of standards or even de facto standards, the interoperability is going to be a nightmare.
So this is the reason why we needed to kind of a team together and hold our hands together and work for our collective good for the future. And in my view, also open API is very critical to help with Vander technology-agnostic interoperability to the next level. I also believe the great industry collaboration, examples currently, out there, including Linux foundation Onet program or the three GPP key participants alliance on mobility network. The driving, the open RAN for the future. These are all open roads for the optical network. Those are the effort the industry is working without an open standard body to drive a particular standard.
A group of the industry, the interested stakeholders they're coming together, working together and driving a better future for the collective body. So this is, not only AT&T can have a better and easier to maintain and more efficient network to operate, to integrate, and to automate. But also it’s cost-saving for all the equipment vendors as well. When they go into this aggregated architecture, go into the software control architecture, but the base our common information model, and that which includes the naming conventions, because that is the unique identifiers everyone needs to use to drive many of the things that in our world.
George Cray: And David, I think you're also alluding to a big transformational change when we talk about, going to 5g. 4g brought a lot of bandwidth out to the consumer and you can watch videos on your phone, et cetera, but 5g is really an enabler of a network or a platform as a service. And so that is, a big shift, for a service provider like yourself. And so 5g is expanding the focus for service providers to make it possible, to use and serve, use your network to serve enterprises. In addition to, serving consumers off of that same, network infrastructure and the same radio that's being deployed. And so moving to a standards-based network technology, such as 5g, allows AT&T and provides them many more options to serve all of their customers and avoid customized network solutions.
So 5g, when you think about it, the business potential is really large. I've seen some studies where the addressable market for carriers, with 5g is over 600 billion. The enterprise segment ends up being a very, large source of incremental 5g revenues for carriers. In another survey, I saw the telecom industry aspires to generate over 40% of their revenues from enterprises five years after launching 5g. So this is a big shift, for consumer-focused service providers like yourself,
Abe Nejad: David, want to go over to you. Again, you touched on this just a moment ago, but, AT&T is using common language in your solution to identify intelligent routers, placed at the edge to support Mac and cloud applications. Can you tell us a little bit more, I know you touched on this, a little bit more about your support for edge computing.
David Lu: Yes. So George well articulated a lot of great business cases for 5g in the 5g because of the bandwidth and driving the enterprise use cases. They are just growing by day. Okay. Every day you hear a new use case being the 5g for business and the for private 5g, the slicing will offer great controllability of delivering what the business demand, and also its speed and capacity will arrive at the same to support the business in an unprecedented manner. All of this, which requires a very robust edge infrastructure I call it infrastructure because I'm from the network side. If you look at from the 5g and also its potential use cases, a lot of great potential with the enterprise customer the multi edge this intelligent edge is going to be so critical. So critical.
So AT&T is absolutely committed to support edge computing and also combined with our HyperCloud approach in the strategy. We believe this is going to be a much more efficient way to manage our edge computing. In addition to that, we also continue to drive the buttoning down the box concept. Desegregate a functional architecture, separate the software from the dedicated, specially customized build hardware. We are going into commercialize the [Inaudible 16:45 ], and we are also driving the implementation software completely separate from the hardware. So the hardware can be sitting in a public cloud, can be in our edge cloud, can be in an AT&T dedicated private cloud for the customer enterprise customer dedicated private cloud. But at the same time that all the software runs on that, it gives all the flexibility.
The ecosystem and the vendors find value in this approach as well. We learned from many of our industry partners, and this also creates some new challenges. For example, when it comes to the reliability in our model, we are used to having one vendor responsible for that. So we get the reliability of this [Inaudible 17:37 ] this box. They will not break down over 8,000 hours, 12,000 hours we have those metrics. Now we have everything is made separately. Someone, it really doesn't even matter in this ecosystem that each individual module has the high availability or reliability, but it's the end-to-end ecosystem that has to sustain and provide the best in class best in the industry reliability model. So this is a very interesting, challenge for us. AT&T also benefit from such an approach. We are working hard to pushing out the edge computing base on all the principles I just mentioned, obviously the hyper cloud solutions is very, very consistent with AT&T's long-term strategy,
Abe Nejad: George on edge compute.
George Cray: Well I think, we're kind of behind the scenes here at Iconectiv and what we do to help support AT&T they're on the front lines, needing to make all of this work. We're one supplier in the industry that, is helping AT&T kind of keep track of all those locations, all that equipment that they deploy and ensure that they understand, basically how to integrate it, operationalize it, and make it fit into their existing processes. So we're a little bit more in the plumbing and a little bit behind the scenes, but a critical element and a foundational element for AT&T to have success.
Abe Nejad: So, David, I'm going to wrap with you, and of course, I'm going to get George's comment on this as well, but it's super important to have a diverse supply strategy for operators. How does that meet your goals of enabling fast and really reliable 5g services that to consumers and also enterprises?
David Lu: So, on this front, let me just start by saying the, common architecture, target architecture vision based on common data model and common data infrastructure, It is very, very critical. Second is that I believe the future is software defined network. As I earlier mentioned, 5g is truly a software-defined network. The complexity and the capability, the opportunity present to us is what we have to deal with. So therefore then again, coming back to certain form of industry alliance drive the common goal and common standards, and common APIs. And that will enable us to deliver the best capability, fully automate the controls with machine learning analytics, to our operational partners and their job can be simplified and streamlined. Ultimately this drives efficiency, accuracy, quality of our services and customer experience. All of which will help us to deliver our board and CEO's expectation of continue and significantly grow our business in the connectivity and providing premier connectivity through fiber and through 5g.
Abe Nejad: George Iconectiv's view on the diverse supply strategy.
George Cray: Well, yeah, I mean, we, we clearly, recognize the industry is in this together, AT&T fosters a diverse strategy, working with partners directly or through, industry alliances and industry groups that David had mentioned earlier. In the end, it benefits customers we recognize that here and Iconectiv, besides being a supplier to AT&T and other service providers, common language plays a role in supporting network equipment manufacturers, that deploy equipment within the service provider networks. Here common language we can, take equipment and create identifiers that not only name the piece of equipment, but uniquely, identify the functionality that's resonant within that piece of equipment. So as a neutral and trusted partner to the global communications industry, we're able to support AT&T in their goal to have an efficient multi-vendor approach to network evolution.
But it's not just the equipment or it's not just the vendors. I think organizationally, and from a process perspective, organizations need to be agile. They need to roll out services quickly. They need to get revenue more quickly. Having a strong foundation established processes helped make all that happen. And that's true within Iconectiv as well. In providing these foundational elements that goes into the network services can be rolled out, much more quickly and in help turn, more or less term profits quickly. So hopefully we're accelerating working with AT&T to accelerate service roll-outs, satisfying customers and driving their revenue. And in the end, everybody wins.
David Lu: So if I may add the simplicity, the commonality, and this automation, all those will drive, ultimately what George you just described of delivering service faster, easier at a few clicks of the customer's fingertips. Thank you,
Abe Nejad: David. Well, first of all, certainly a number of topics to discuss under the 5g umbrella. This is just one of them. And, David Lu was really the right person for this session. And David, we appreciate your time and want to thank you for making this happen. We had to go through a bit of a labyrinth over at, AT&T to secure your calendar. But, again, we thank you for your time and it was really, really helpful.
David Lu: Thank you very much. I'm very glad to be here this morning.
Abe Nejad: I'm glad to have you and George Cray has always, again, we did this earlier this morning and, you're a great speaker by the way. And we like to get your input obviously on these topics and, thanks for your time as well.
George Cray: Well, thank you and I enjoyed, definitely, speaking with David, it was a pleasure.
Abe Nejad: Great. And again, I always want to think Iconectiv for really making this session today possible and, to our audience out there, we do thank AT&T and Iconectiv again for speaking on 5g, the universal structure for service providers. This session rather will be on-demand on November 5th. You can go to the network media group.com for that so long.
For any inquiries, please email anejad@thenetworkmediagroup.com