Industry leaders from Blue Planet and Reach dive into the future of network automation. John McVey, VP of Global Customer Success at Blue Planet, highlights the critical need for OSS modernization, as telecom providers work to replace decades-old systems. He discusses how automation is streamlining operations and unlocking new efficiencies.
Harjot Saluja, CEO of Reach, emphasizes the growing role of AI in enabling predictive automation and enhancing customer experience. The panel explores how service providers can leverage intelligent automation to reduce costs and accelerate digital transformation. Watch the full discussion to gain expert insights into the evolving telecom landscape.
Alejandro Piñero:
Welcome everyone once again to the Fierce Network TV Studio here in Barcelona covering MWC. Well, we're coming to the end of day two, but there's no tired faces in the studio today because we're talking about network automation, something that has been all over the show, and we have a great panel for you.
Let me start with you, John. If you can tell us a little bit about perhaps definition setting. Folks talk about automation and OSS modernization. What do they mean? What are some of the differences?
John McVey:
They're interchangeable, I'd say, but with some subtle differences. I think from an OSS modernization perspective, Telco has recognized the need to automate. However, some of them are faced with some unfortunate challenges of reducing legacy systems that are 20 or 30 years old before they do that, and that's something that they've punted on for years if not decades.
Once they have that modern foundation in place, they can then start to automate their IT and network operations, gain benefits from reduced costs, provide faster services to customers in a more modern and efficient way.
Alejandro Piñero:
Great. Thank you, John. What about you, Harjot? Would you agree or anything to add?
Harjot Saluja:
Yeah, I do agree with John. I think when it comes to network automation, you have to think about automation at all layers. We at Reach have been working hard to create an entire Telco-in-a-box automation. I think the reason I was late by seven minutes coming to this show, because we accepted a challenge to create a completely commercial mobile brand in seven minutes, and we did.
We launched a new mobile brand, and it's completely commercial. You can go activate your service, move your number, you've got the device store, taxes, everything. And if you go back even five years, it's just unheard of. It costs millions of dollars to do something like that. So I think automation has to be done at the network layer, the OSS, BSS, all the way top to the service layer, and that's what we've been working on.
Alejandro Piñero:
That's very impressive.
Harjot Saluja:
So yes, completely agree.
Alejandro Piñero:
Monica, you have a privileged position as an analyst. You get to talk to everyone and hear their stories and gather your insights. So there seems to be a change in CSP's organizations with 5G particularly. Why does 5G drive that change internally, perhaps opposed to previous generations?
Monica Paolini:
Well, I guess the issue is that there is more complexity. Networks are more complex. And usually complexity is a bad thing, right? I mean, why would you want to have anything more complex? But complexity means choice, flexibility, and opportunity.
However, to use that opportunity to your advantage and not to your disadvantage, you need to be able to automate because there are so many things you can change that a human doing it manually just doesn't work. So automation becomes a necessity throughout the network, not just in Iran, not just... everywhere across it. If you want to benefit from the technology, technology is great, but in order to really benefit from it, you need automation, I believe. And that's where it's not an easy path.
Alejandro Piñero:
That's the driver.
Monica Paolini:
That's why we need them to help us out because it is not trivial at all.
John McVey:
That's the foundation.
Alejandro Piñero:
Yeah. And perhaps then on that note, John, why is now the time to think about automation and what are some services that are driving that?
John McVey:
We're seeing an uptick in the need for converging both wireline, wireless, and now satellite services into solutions. Satellite technology has often been just a backup, but now it's a bona fide provider with global reach and in high performance. And so I think connecting satellite technology to the RAM, to the underlying transport is something that we're starting to see really take up in terms of an automated solution.
Alejandro Piñero:
Brilliant. Harjot, do you want to close the panel out with your thoughts here?
Harjot Saluja:
Yeah, I actually agree. I think convergence is a big driver. I think to me it's convergence, we are at reach in the middle of it because we literally work with a lot of ISPs in the US in creating a converged mobile internet product or mobile fixed wireless product. And I think the other aspect of it is also number of devices in everybody's life, either devices we physically interact with or devices just are there and giving some information to us.
If you go back five years or ten years, the number of device per person that either we physically interact with or are in our lives was at least one-tenth than what we have today. And that number is going to keep growing, both in developed economies and developing economies. So I think that, as Monica pointed out before, you have to have automation to handle it, to scale it.
Alejandro Piñero:
Excellent.
Harjot Saluja:
Yeah, I think timing is good now.
Alejandro Piñero:
Absolutely. Well, listen, it's just five minutes. We can't get to the depth of this topic, obviously, but what a great opportunity for us to have you here. Thank you so much for taking the time out of what I'm sure is a busy week here in Barcelona.
Harjot Saluja:
Thank you, Alejandro.
Monica Paolini:
Thank you, Alejandro.