FYUZ is the yearly event where the TIP community congregates. This year, it was last week (November 11-13) in Dublin. I talked with Eugina Jordan, CMO at TIP, who worked hard to make it a success, about what happened at FYUZ, what we like about it, what has changed, and what the trends are for next year in OpenRAN, OpenWiFi, and Open Optical, and how AI is going to impact them. Sign up for the mailing list at https://senzafili.com/senza-fili-mailing-list/to receive invitations to the live...

We are midway in our 5G journey. It may not have been as game-changing as many expected, but it did improve connectivity, and it is an impressive new technology. There is ample room for improvement, this much is clear. What can we learn from the beginnings of 5G to continue the innovation? What should we do differently? Azita Arvani, ex-CEO at Rakuten Symphony North America, and I agree that we should not give up on 5G and wait until 6G arrives. But how aggressive should we be in pushing...

We usually think about wireline and wireless as alternative, complementary and at times competing ways to provide connectivity. But increasingly connectivity to any device requires the combination of wireline and wireless components. Access is mostly wireless through cellular, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth or other interfaces, and, eventually, the connection is transported to fiber. What is variable is where the wireless signal moves into the wireline realm. For instance, backhaul can be wireless or...

Geoff and I spar on our different views on the success of 5G

The transition from R&D to commercial deployments may be slow or never happen. Why?

A discussion among analysts of the events they find more valuable to attend

A second discussion with Preston Marshall on 6G: standardization, crucial role of a new core, CBRS, SIM, private networks and more

Monetization and love can be both elusive, but monetization is harder than love. Why? Can we make it easier to find?

What do we need 6G to do that 5G does not? A discussion on indoor coverage, private networks, core, monetization and Wi-Fi

Magnus Olden, CTO at Domos, comes to telco API from an IT and Wi-Fi background and works to make API less complex, more easily usable and valuable to application developers. We talked about what app developers need, and how their perspective can be very different from that of operators and the telco ecosystem. How could we get telcos and app developers to both benefit from API? How can we get APIs to also cover Wi-Fi access? What are the implications for API adoption and monetization? We...

John Baker is the SVP of Business Development at Mavenir and one of the strongest proponents of Open RAN, since the very beginnings. We have talked about Open RAN in a previous Sparring Partners, and this is an update on the progress of Open RAN and the market outlook.  How are we moving from Open RAN to end-to-end open networks? How is the concept of Open RAN evolving? Open RAN deployments are taking longer than some initially expected: Does it mean that Open RAN is not working as expected,...

This is an introduction to the podcast version of Sparring Partners from Monica Paolini, the podcast host on what Sparring Partners is about, its approach and its format. I talk about the reasons why I am starting a weekly podcast, QuickFire, which will coexist with the longer DiveIn Sparring Partners that you may be familiar with.  I have uploaded recent Sparring Partners, but this is the inaugural podcast-from-scratch QuickFire one. More will come soon.  More on Senza Fili at...

A conversation with Markus Kümmerle, Deutsche Telekom and CAMARA, Daryl Schoolar at Recon Analytics and Monica Paolini at Senza Fili on the value, benefits and challenges of APIs APIs have been around for a long time, but in the last couple of years have become one of the brightest beacons of monetization, even though their role is much wider than that. With the GSMA launch of the Open Gateway, there are signs of growth and adoption, but also questions about adoption paths, use cases and...

In this final Sparring Partners on AI and automation, we heard the operator's perspective from Jennifer Yates about AT&T's experience to date, ongoing activities, and future roadmap to adopt AI-driven automation and eventually move to autonomous networks. Jennifer shared her deep, first-hand experience in running highly innovative projects to manage and optimize the AT&T network using AI and ML, and discussed the challenges and opportunities of these new technologies: What are the...

In network operations, we are always looking for areas for improvement. How should we manage applications to best serve end customers? How can we use end-to-end visibility of application and service performance to end customers, anomaly detection for automated pattern discovery and prediction to improve quality of experience? How should we utilize software-driven networks to deliver new services and support monetization strategies? In this Sparring Partners with Rick Fulwiler, Chief Solutions...

AI will change the way we operate telecom networks. But what’s the best way to get there? How should we introduce AI to get the benefits it promises but avoid duplication, conflicts among different AI models, and undesired outcomes? How do we know AI models will deliver what we expect? In this Sparring Partners, Per Kangru and Takai Eddine Kennouche at VIAVI Solutions shared their AIOps practical experience and vision for integrating AI and ML in network operations in an efficient and...

Most of the time, we talk about how AI, ML and GenAI change the way we run and operate networks, enable automation, tame complexity, and improve efficiency. They also change the way we – the humans in telecoms – operate, the skills we need, and how we deal with AI-based platforms. This will require profound changes and our ability to meet the cultural and technological challenges is going to be crucial to benefit from AI. In this Sparring Partners, we talked with Azita Arvani, formerly at...

AI-driven automation is going to change the way we run our networks end-to-end, from the access in the RAN all the way to the core, from the edge infrastructure to the cloud. To get there, we need the right silicon and platforms. Are we there yet? In this Sparring Partners, we talked with Cristina Rodriguez at Intel about the network transformation that AI and automation enable and about the role that Intel plays in the industry ecosystem. Are we ready to fully embark on AI-driven...

It is not coincidental that networks are evolving towards openness and automation at the same time. Openness brings flexibility and choice, but also increased complexity. Automation, aided by cloudification and AI, enables operators to manage complexity and benefit from the flexibility in the network. Together, openness and automation change the way we operate networks and deliver services. In this Sparring Partners with Brandon Larson, SVP, GM, Cloud, AI & IMS at Mavenir, we talked about...

Intelligent applications and generative AI will help operators increase the value of their already installed and new networks. By using network-specific knowledge, they can empower operators with trusted solutions that increase network efficiency. In this Sparring Partners with Blake Hlavaty, Director of Global Network Software Offers at Fujitsu, we discussed the practical adoption of automation powered by AI/ML. Intelligent applications help operations teams navigate complex vendor...

The Middle East is emerging as a hot area for digital transformation, driven by R&D funding, limited resistance from legacy infrastructure and organizational culture, and a desire to get a more prominent role in the global market. Tareq Amin, CEO at Aramco Digital, was our Sparring Partner and talked about his recent move from Japan, where he was the CEO of Rakuten Mobile, to Saudi Arabia. He told us how his job has changed, and about the pace of innovation he found in the Middle East....

There is much talk about how GenAI will change how we operate and automate telco networks, but there is also much uncertainty about GenAI’s potential, challenges, opportunities and adoption models. We talked with Anbu Ganesh, Business Director of Innovation & Business Development at VIAVI, to get the insider’s view on what GenAI has started to deliver, how it will evolve, and how to implement it in networks to maximize its promised benefits. Anbu shared his experience developing network...

Recent announcements by AT&T, 1&1 and Deutsche Telekom indicate an inflection point in the readiness for open RAN commercial deployments, but also an emerging new approach in vendor selection. In this Sparring Partners, I talked to John Baker at Mavenir, Geoff Hollingworth at Rakuten Symphony and Aji Ed at Nokia about how vendors approach disaggregation in the open RAN market today and how they expect that vendor selection will evolve in the future in the overall RAN market. You can...

Operators are getting ready to deploy open RAN in commercial, live networks. Each operator is defining its strategy and flavor of open RAN, its pace, and its vendor ecosystem. Yet, they all need to ensure that the open RAN architecture and topology they choose work as expected. Are the equipment, the software, the platforms and the applications interoperable? How can they optimize the end-to-end network performance to meet subscribers’ needs and expectations? Open RAN requires a new approach...