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Arvani, the former Rakuten Symphony North America CEO, gave a wide-ranging keynote at our Cloud Executive Summit last week
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She said that operators need to treat enterprises and 5G differently
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The rise of private networks has shown the demand for 5G services, whether MNOs deliver them or not
Azita Arvani, a Stanford Sloan Fellow and the former North America CEO at Rakuten Symphony gave a keynote at our recent Cloud Executive Summit in Sonoma, Calif., that took in topics like 5G evolution and automation, monetization, private networks and much more.
Talking about modernization, Arvani said, “You have to think of your network as a programmable network and even beyond that as an autonomous network."
She continued, if operators have that vision, and say I’m here now with “very little automation,” they need to consider the steps that they're taking to get there in order to keep up with demand from enterprises customers for more automated networks.
This is where there is a disconnect for operators, Arvani explained. Between dealing with consumer 5G needs and managing enterprise 5G requirements, operators can’t just sit back and say to enterprises, "Here I am," she said.
“You guys, do your enterprise transformation and come to me when you need some connectivity services. It just doesn’t work that way, you have to be proactive,” Arvani said. “Enterprises...need to have ROIs, right?”
This is why, 5G — and 4G LTE — private networks for enterprise use have taken off, she said.
“If telcos don’t move fast, private networks get created in other ways,” Arvani said.
Notably, vendors are starting to deliver 5G network-in-a-box (NIB) systems that enterprises can install themselves.
“The water has to come from the mountain. If you see the rock, it goes around it,” Arvani said, laughing.