5G Factor: 5G Ecosystem Adjusting, Episode 66

Hello and welcome everyone to the 5G Factor. I'm Ron Westfall, research director here at the Futureum Group, and I'm joined here today by my distinguished colleague, Tom Hollingsworth, the networking nerd and event lead at Tech Field Day here at the Futurum Group. In fact, I believe we're coming off a very successful one that is the Mobility Tech Field Day that was conducted last week at, uh, Silicon Valley, and it focused on mobility.

And with that in mind, let's turn our attention to now other major 5G ecosystem developments that have caught our eye, including neutral host developments, the partnership between Dell and Ericsson, as well as, hey, let's look at hybrid cloud and cloud native, uh, capabilities and how that can impact 5G. And we'll look at, uh, red Hat as a starting point there. So with that, uh, debuting, uh, what about you, Tom?

How have things been going along for you since, you know, we did Mobility Tech Field Day last week. It's been busy. We've been getting all the videos posted from the presentations and, uh, you know, just been looking at the statistics that a lot of people are very interested not only in topics like wifi seven, but of course, you know, private 5G is something that a lot of, uh, people who operate, uh, these so-called Uncared Enterprise locations are very interested in.

And I think that that kind of will be born out by some of the conversations that we're gonna have today about where the value is, but also, uh, what people need to keep in mind as they start looking at providers who have these capabilities because you know they're gonna wanna sell 'em to you. Exactly. In fact, I, uh, was certainly stimulated by the conversations we had at Mobility Tech Field Day, and it's good news to see that there's so much interest in, uh, the various, uh, conversations.

And yeah, to kick things off, we will actually segue from Mobility Tech Field Day, but before that, I just wanna do a quick shout out that there is other upcoming tech field days. Uh, one specifically that comes to mind is Networking Tech Field Day that will be taking place July 10th and 11th, also again in Silicon Valley. And Tom, uh, can you also share some other upcoming tech field days that people should pay attention to?

Absolutely. So we're gonna be onsite at a couple of events coming up at Cisco Live as well as HPE Discover. We're gonna have content coming to you, obviously from Cisco and HPE Aruba networking, uh, around topics like private 5G Security, wireless, um, but we also have a cloud focused event that'll be happening in that in-between weeks.

So the second week of June, uh, Steven Foskett ISS gonna be bringing you some great conversations, honestly, from some networking companies like, uh, Juniper Networks and, uh, some other great companies. com to see the entire list of presenters as well as the schedule so you can tune in for, you know, what appeals to you. Maybe you wanna hear about Hybrid Cloud, maybe you want to hear about cloud networking.

Uh, there's, there's a good mix of topics for you. Yeah, it's a great wealth and what's not to light. And so now here for 5G Factor, I think something that definitely ties this together is the very technology of neutral host networks.

And I think that's something that's been around for a while. However, I think, uh, just within the last few weeks, it's gained some high profile attention and I believe as a result, some important momentum going into the second half of 2024. And so with that, I'm looking at the Verizon business, uh, announcement specifically where it revealed its first customer for its new neutral host product, which combines a neutral host network with a private 5G network for an enterprise located in upstate New York, Cummins.

Now, as a quick refresher, I basically summarize what is a neutral host network. I think most folks understand that, but some people might be looking at this for the first time. And so what it's enabling is, you know, a set of networking equipment to support multiple wireless network, uh, operators on the same platform, basically.

Now that way an enterprise or a venue, uh, for example, is not obliged to install multiple separate networks to support users such as their workforce or customers and so forth from, you know, multiple different operators. And so here in the US that usually means, you know, being able to support the big three mobile operators such as Verizon and T-Mobile, as well as at and t. They can also entail supporting MVNOs or perhaps Dish Network and so forth.

So the idea is that you're going to have the ability to support multiple network operators without having to go through the complexity of supporting multiple, uh, separate networks. Now, Cummins Inc, uh, which uh, came to my attention for the first time because of this announcement, uh, is the industry that selected Verizon for this. And so as a result, Verizon is the technical lead and anchor tenant for a combo network that will be developed in its Jamestown engine plant located in Lakewood, New York.

So the engine plant, and these I think are important stats, has 1 million square feet of industrial space and 1 million square feet of outdoor space, and it has 1,500 employees producing approximately 500 heavy duty trunk engines each day. So basically they make truck engines. And so, uh, I find that, you know, uh, pretty intriguing and this as a result qualifies 'em certainly as a massive scale industrial site that is a strong candidate naturally for a neutral host site implementation.

Now, I think there are some key aspects here to keep in mind. 5 gigahertz CBRS connections as well. Now, one of the major business challenges that Commons was facing was that the company did not have a system that enabled all of its employees to get to the same level of signal across all the different carriers that can be supported there at this location.

And as we know, employees need to make emergency calls sometimes inside or outside the facility, and that call well needs to be received, it needs to be put through. And so fundamentally mutual hosting addresses this critical need. Now I see the neutral host model picking up momentum.

And why is that? Well, quite simply, the competition is heating up. It's intense.

You know, we're seeing players, uh, like Federated Wireless, dense Air Cel kaji, and Fiji Drew its software and Halo Networks. And out of that mix, I think we're going to see, you know, some, uh, breakout in terms of the competition. Now, uh, as we already, uh, talked about, we already had the opportunity to listen to CEL at the recent mobility tech field Day 11 event.

And from those conversations, I see that the CEL approach when it comes to neutral host solutions can pretty much provide, you know, that competitive advantage, uh, over say a distributed antenna system implementation, which is where I think, uh, this is going to be a real difference maker. And again, a little foreground, uh, distributed antenna systems are what have been used to try to really enable, you know, the communications inside facilities or across industrial sites and so forth. However, as we've seen that could be complex and costly.

And so I think, uh, Celonis solution is a good example of how these costs can be halved, uh, or potentially halved, as well as quite simply providing visibility into the network as well with the distributed antenna system implementations that really wasn't, you know, part of, of the package, as well as quite simply going back to that age old problem of how do we eliminate complexity in, you know, 5G networks. Now, what also is important is that the Verizon business move is following on T-Mobile, which has already tossed its hat into the neutral host arena. 0.

And I think it's a pretty program. What it does is that the certification of Celonis neutral host technology can ensure service integrity for T-Mobile's subscribers, uh, but also includes support for voice and data services emergency 9 1 1 calling and other important subscriber services with full regulatory compliance. So this is really bringing it together.

And so we know with that in mind, Tom, what do you think about, you know, other operators shining to, you know, rise and being a neutral host? And also now how do you see, you know, the neutral host model evolving over the second half of 24? Well, I think it's important for people to understand that for a long time, the value that people were trying to sell you was in their network, right?

You know? Yes. Uh, think of all the Verizon commercials that you've heard, the at t commercials that you've heard, the T-Mobile commercials that you've heard, you know, our network is the best, but eventually you're gonna run out of everything.

You're gonna run out of spectrum, you're gonna run out space to put up towers, and then you've gotta a real problem because now you're trying to sell them on a network that can't really expand. And that's where this neutral host model comes in. I, you know, I love the fact that you kind of compared it to the MV and o craze.

Remember when everybody had their own mobile network? I remember it was the Disney phone that everybody was trying to sell, you know, it's like specialized to your kid, but it was a mobile phone that could receive calls and things like that. It ran on Verizon and, and most people didn't know and didn't care as long as it worked well in today's market.

You know, some what, 10, 12, 15 years later, what we're selling is the software stack. We're selling the orchestration layer on top of all of those networks. Verizon wants to be a utility player because when's the last time you went into a building and said, you know, I'm gonna go ahead and use this, but I really need to run all new power.

I need to own the power infrastructure in here because my power is gonna be better than your power. You never do that. You just assume that the power is good enough to support whatever you're gonna do.

That's what Verizon wants because at that point, people will have to start renting time on their network. And they are attacking the right market here. Like you said, the Cummins plant, you know, if you drive a big truck that's a diesel engine, you probably have a Cummins engine because they specialize in making those giant diesel engines.

They have an a, an enormous warehouse, uh, factory floor that is the, what I consider the, the epitome of the uncared enterprise, right? It's smelly, it's dusty, musty dirty. You would never go in there with these bright, clean aps and try to stick one of them every 10 or 12 feet, right?

You need something that works across the whole board so that your users can use their cell phone, kinda like in a das infrastructure that you might see in like a hospital or a stadium, but more importantly, the iot devices that are going on the floor, the tablets that people are using to check in work, the, uh, you know, the, the communications infrastructure that they're using to be able to report line problems and things like that. Even for some of those older machines that haven't technically been connected to the grid yet, um, there are solutions that will allow them to do that, but they're gonna basically work like, um, you know, access points. We're gonna plug the machine in through whatever communication method it needs, and we're going to connect to the network using CBRS or private 5G technology of some kind.

Verizon really needs to get people to start buying into this because rather than going into partnership with other companies like cel like you mentioned, they are basically saying, well, we're gonna be kind of the neutral, the neutral, neutral third party. Any, we will work with anybody as, as long as it's not at and t or T-Mobile, but you're gonna basically pay to be a part of us. And I don't know if that is gonna play out the way that they want because the problem is, is like they've spent all of this money investing in this infrastructure, they've gotta recoup some of those costs because they can't keep raising prices on their subscribers because we've, we've essentially hit kind of this cost cutting parody with, uh, subscriber numbers.

Like, you know, people will jump to another subscriber to save like five bucks a month. So you can't really tweak the prices too much 'cause people are already squeaking. So you've gotta expand into the enterprise because those people, it takes a lot to make them squeak as long as they're getting good connectivity.

So I'll be curious to see how this experiment plays out with them. Yeah, no, those are excellent points, Tom. And I think, yeah, there was a sentiment certainly at mobility, uh, tech field day, that's, uh, you know, Verizon is going it alone in terms of how it's implementing the, the neutral host model.

Yes, they're using Ericsson equipment, but again, they're the ones who are basically in charge of how it's being, uh, you know, uh, built out. And it now, uh, with at and t and T-Mobile, there is a, uh, contrast here. They are willing to work with third parties to enable the model, you know, cel certainly, uh, coming to mind, but also, you know, I think it's good, you know, for, uh, the competition out there.

That is, let's see, which model actually brings on more, uh, basically investment support. And that's going to be certainly, uh, a bottom line here. And that is, you know, with the T-Mobile and at t approach, you know, we see, you know, the enterprise themselves basically, you know, funding, uh, the neutral host model.

And this is something that is to their benefit as well. Now that is, this is something that can really be, I think that was a good point, the equivalent to having water, to having power. You know, these are things that you just automatically expect any, you know, uh, industrial site to have or, you know, let alone, uh, other places like venues and so forth.

And so this is basically making, you know, connectivity all the more integral to everyday living that, you know, this is a society-wide expectation. And I think, uh, this is going to help fuel the overall neutral host model. But also I think it is good to see that there are different approaches here and that I think will help the overall competition.

And, uh, so with that in mind, now, let's turn to things that have also been going on over the last week. And that I think, uh, also can entail taking a look at Dell Tech world 2024. And so that was dur definitely a show that focused on ai.

And that is certainly, I think, uh, a, a tribute to Dell's portfolio that's able to address AI throughout so many of the, the parts of the network as well as use cases and so forth. And, and this is something that I think we'll see more of, you know, I think with HPE Discover AI is going to be a major thing. And so why I'm invoking that is that there was also an announcement that pertaining, uh, specifically to telcos and five Gs, and that is a partnership with Ericsson that is really focused on pushing cloud transformations forward.

And this is going back to the theme of how do we make the journey more simple? How can we eliminate the complexity that's already out there because of things like das and, you know, legacy implementations and so forth. And, you know, as Celena pointed out, you know, LTE to 5G transitions and so forth.

Well, uh, to make this happen, the duo is commercially debuting Ericsson cloud ran software on Dell powered service that are underpinned by continuous testing and lifecycle management, plus joint services that offer telcos integrated network infrastructure support. And what I think is important here is that we're, I think we're gonna see more of that, that, you know, we know that the telcos across the board have been dialing back CapEx that they've been know, uh, rationalizing workforce numbers and so forth. And so that is going to, I think, put more emphasis on the suppliers, the supply chain, the value chain, to come up with solutions that are quite simply pre-integrated and come with a healthy dose of support.

Now, this has always been in play, but I think it's just gonna be more accident now, all the more important. And I think also what's important is that both companies are looking to unstuck, really the telco transformation journeys out there. You know, 5G debuted five years ago, and there was a lot of hype, and this is not unique to 5G, the hypes died down, but now we're trying to figure out how can the telcos really make 5G sizzle?

That is, how can it be more effective at monetizing a new service, or quite simply enabling exciting new applications that well consumers, but certainly businesses will want to, you know, pay for. And, uh, they invokes, I think, uh, interesting, uh, study from merit talk that indicates that a whopping 96% of telcos or, uh, communication service providers have indicated that their network transformation journeys are lagging due to factors such as time and budget constraints alongside reliability and security issues. Now, the time and budget constraints aren't unique, but I think they're more acute now.

We've all been hearing about skill shortages, but also it's wondering about, you know, the reliability and security issues. And that I think will play to the strengths of partners like til and, uh, Ericsson, you know, they certainly have, you know, deep expertise in this area. They certainly have, uh, vast service resources.

And this is something that I think is going to become more into play as the telcos quite simply try to figure out how to make their telco cloud transformation journeys all the more successful. Now, uh, what this is also bringing is that they're cultivating customized cloud network transformation journeys and really providing guidance on network structures and operational frameworks. That's, you know, the telcos can use to quite simply, you know, minimize risk across, well increasingly open and heterogeneous vendor environments.

And, uh, Ericsson's Cloud ran, uh, software will now be, uh, launched on the Dell Power Edge service. And that is going to again, uh, also help not only the deployments, but also minimize day two operations, which I don't think get, uh, enough attention. And that includes the upgrades, the updates, and also providing integration testing and lifecycle management.

So all these things have to really come together. And if it's in a package from two trusted providers, I think, uh, that will prove, uh, more attractive. And so no coincidence that a and t and t was present at Dell Tech world as well as at Ericsson's 5G factory, uh, tour event that also, uh, overlapped.

So this is something that I think is demonstrating how this is all coming together, that, you know, we have a major operate like at and t basically working with Dell and Ericsson to really modernize their network to really, you know, enable things like an open ran, uh, implementation, you know, according to their view of what open ran is. But I think it's also showing that, um, it's adding momentum really to the Dell and Ericsson partnership that's already been in place. They're already announced last year the combination of using Dell powered servers with, uh, the, uh, Ericsson, uh, cloud ran capabilities, but also I think it's going to make a difference in terms of bringing that choice and flexibility that CSPs prioritize when it comes to certainly their overall cloud transformation, but also their cloud ran implementation specifically.

And stay tuned, both Dell and Ericsson I think are to be very capable at enabling these multi-vendor implementations. 'cause as we know, the operators just make a great deal of priority on that. And so with that, Tom, what do you think about, you know, the latest, uh, update to the, uh, Dell Erickson partnership and what quite simply the implications for the 5G ecosystem?

The trough of D disillusionment, if you wanna call it that, is basically filled with technical debt. And that's one of the problems that a lot of people don't really understand when they start this cloud journey. The easy things to convert to cloud native infrastructure have already been done.

Unless you work in a super highly regulated industry, it's those hard problems. If you don't believe me, look at how many workloads still are required to run on as four hundreds or Z series mainframes. Those things never even made the transition to on-prem client server architecture, let alone making the transition all the way into the cloud.

You've got to analyze how that's going to operate. And that's just what you and I would consider from an IT perspective. Technical debt, this is a whole other realm.

A lot of the stuff that lives in those base stations and out at the edge is this weird custom kind of proprietary setup. It does not translate well. So what you really need to do is you need to kind of, well rip and replace, but you need a solution that's gonna work well together.

Because a lot of the reason why that technical debt exists at the edge is because they were cobbling those solutions together to kind of sort of make them work. And that is not supportable. So like you said, let's say we go out and buy a Dell Power Edge, we run our Ericsson Rand solution on top of it and one of the servers goes down.

Well, nobody has to go out there now with a soldering iron and a, uh, electrical schematic and some chewing gum and MacGyver the thing back together. They could just order parts from Dell. And, you know, that's one of the reasons why Dell is still such a valuable commodity.

And we mentioned that this week on the gestalt, it rundown, people want Dell's support infrastructure. They want that parts availability. They don't want to have to go see if they have to order a part off of eBay or heaven forbid go find a Radio shack that's still in business to get something to put this thing back together.

They want advance replacement on it. And that calms the minds of the stakeholders who are willing to make these investments if it comes down to a choice between building the best platform possible. But there's no way that the person who built it can ever leave or retire because he's the only one who knows how to work on it.

Or ordering Adele solution that has the backing of Dell and Erickson. And I'm gonna put it out there and deploy it, and it gives me a little bit more flexibility if it costs a little more, I don't care because I want the ability to fix it when it goes wrong. And that's going to help these 5G deployments kind of leapfrog in coverage because now that we're able to, you know, have known good hardware that we can put in the base stations that allow us to expand operational services out there, it's gonna make everyone's life so much easier.

And I think that Dell finally understands that because the transition to 5G honestly is about coming into commodity hardware. It's about creating operational, um, synergy with the things that are going on and making sure that people understand that this is not just some kind of house of cards that we've built over the years and don't touch anything. 'cause if you do, it'll break.

Dell has a real valuable opportunity here to uplift a lot of server sales in these areas where people are ready to make that move because their stakeholders are pushing them into 5G and they're not liking the pace that it's taking so far. No excellent points, Tom. And I think it, uh, triggers two additional factors here.

I guess you can call them mega trends. And so in the background, you know, why Dell Services, and I think, uh, we touched on it, it's because AI is now introducing this new competitive dynamic. Now it could mostly be good news for telcos, but not, not necessarily be, now we've seen to your point about, you know, know, going to the cloud, you know, the low hanging fruit has already been implemented, but the rest, you know, is more challenging.

And I think we're seeing the same kind of thing with ai. You know, some of the more easier implementations have been, uh, put in place now that is using Gen AI to, you know, help customer support, uh, to help with, uh, understanding bills more, uh, uh, effectively. And, but I think it's going to grow.

I think it's going to have impact where, uh, the operators can enlist, uh, AI or specifically gen AI to help with coding efficiency as well as helping field tech, you know, which is basically, um, a iteration of, you know, what's already going on with, uh, customer support. So there you go, you know, Dell support can play a major role in also helping telcos figure out what to do with ai. The other thing is, I think it was, uh, smart of Ericsson to build its 5G Smart Factory and now here in, uh, Texas USA, I think that was a factor in, you know, why at and t decided to go with Ericsson for its, you know, version of an open ran implementation so forth.

But it's not, uh, just that, I think it's just overall, I think we know there are geopolitical factors out there that are driving, uh, you know, more of the decision making and how can we secure supply chains, how can we minimize disruption and so forth. And this partnership, I think is a good example, at least when it comes to, uh, working with A TNT. And so keeping a theme, uh, with the theme of 5G ecosystem adjustments, I think we touched on two major ones.

Now let's look at, uh, going back to cloud initiatives and, uh, more specifically hybrid cloud. Now, uh, we've seen, uh, that Red Hat has been focusing on using open source principles. I think people automatically think open source and Red Hat, you know, like in the same sentence.

But I think it's, uh, also important to look at how they're focusing this on the telcos specifically. And once again, what is like kind of their lead marketing mantra, reducing complexity. And so this has been a constant theme and everything we've touched on, uh, in our conversation here, and it's open source that really I believe is underpinning Red Hat's pre-integrated platform approach that includes, again, uh, blending and orchestrating 5G automation hybrid cloud ai and edge, uh, computing capabilities.

And how are they doing that specifically? Well, they're offering, uh, what could be characterized as a unified cloud native application platform that really is looking to span its telco's entire network from the core to the edge, outer edge. And to that end, red Hat has integrated, again, the Ericsson cloud ran with its OpenShift, uh, technology for more flexibility and, uh, how an operator can implement, you know, a hybrid cloud, uh, approach.

And also, you know, how they can select, you know, for example, multiple cloud partners. Also, uh, this is following on the fact that Red Hat announced a partnership to deliver Nokia's core network applications together with again, you know, red Hat's cloud infrastructure platform. Now, are there practical outcomes coming from this?

Because again, 5G still has, you know, a hangover from the hype cycle. What is different now? What is new?

Well, I think when it comes to what is different, we have to look at customers and I, I think Red Hat has an interesting one in perfect him. And you might ask who's perfect him? Well, that's an Uzbekistan operator, so yay, we got to get honorable mention for Uzbekistan in a 5G factor.

And what is I think is important there is preparing the open source platform agility in that network with Nokia's core network applications. And again, it's to enable that flexibility, but it's not just that network. I'm seeing Red Hat offering a growing number of new pre-integrated and validated cloud native network functions, or CNFs that again, focus on 5G Core and other business related applications.

And so, uh, what is this doing for Telco customers that is, uh, I guess you could say beneficial? Well, I think it's a way for a platform approach to ease the path in terms of moving to, again, those more open multi-vendor implementation. So we've already, uh, emphasized that, and this is reinforcing it, you know, what is Red Hat doing also?

I think it's going to help with, again, gaining that more consistent operational experience across the entire network. And that's helping to, you know, drive, you know, uh, revenue streams, uh, that are more diversified and hopefully, ultimately more profitable. And, uh, also, again, deliver a better customer experience for all the customers, both on the consumer side and on the business side.

But in addition to Perfecto, you know, red Hat certainly has other telco customers that it's been working with, and that includes Japan's KDDI, Lenor and Turkcell, uh, come to mind. And basically it's the same theme here. They're, you know, using Red Hat to en enable cloud native application development, but also being able to better administer and handle a multi-vendor environment in a hybrid cloud world.

And, well, let's wait for it. It's also about our new friend ai. And, and so what I think is interesting here is that Red Hat is actually working with players like Cisco Intel to also integrate and again, simplify operationalizing AI within these new validated designs as well as automated platforms, you know, for, you know, common AI models.

And now where else can we see this AI approach making a difference? Well, it also, it's going to impact the Rand part of the network, and we can see that with the I Rand framework, red Hat, and again, Nokia are working in a collaborate collaboration, provide pre-integrated and tested solutions for their cloud ran customers. And so this is again, uh, giving customers a cloud ran reference design that supports, again, a choice of general purpose hardware platforms that they can combine through, again, red Hat OpenShift, and, uh, to basically, um, put a accent on it.

Red Hat's also working with Avenir. And the reason why I'm bringing that up is because they're actually advancing the commercial phase of an open ran network deployment in the Vodafone idea network. And so what we're, I think we're seeing is the mainstreaming of open source cloud native AI infused capabilities becoming well, uh, more widely adopted.

And as such, I don't know, is this something that is going to inject more cheer into the telco community? Is this gonna move the needle for the delivery of more competitive 5G services? And Tom, so what's your take on the Red Hat Telco proposition and you know, the telco prospects in working with Red Hat?

Well, like we mentioned in the previous story, the, you, you want reliable rock solid hardware that doesn't create technical debt. And I can buy the biggest baddest server out there, and if it's still running VMS, it doesn't matter because I don't, does anybody even write for that anymore? It's like walking into a programming class in college and asking people who knows fortran, they're probably gonna look at you like you're crazy.

The reason why people want cloud has nothing to do with paying Amazon to host your stuff or not wanting to buy hardware. And it has everything to do with creating a less variable operational cycle. Whereas something would normally take two to three days to do with cloud principles, it could take one to two days consistently.

And that's really what people are looking for, is that repeatability, that predictability, that orchestrate ability. And that's why it's so valuable to get an operating system like Red Hat Enterprise Linux, or any of the other flavors, whether it's OpenShift or what have you into that system because that provides capabilities that you can build on that people know how to write for. I mean, just go Google any one of the apocryphal stories about how the insurance company is still running on COBOL because nobody knows how to translate all of that stuff into something more modern.

The telco space is in danger of doing that. And if they can't figure out how to make this more modern, make this more operational, they're gonna be stuck in a past where they're basically having to train people to work on their stuff. And if you don't know how that's spelled, it includes $4 signs because those people cost a crap load of money when they only know how to work on your stuff.

And the market for those people is extremely rare. They pretty much can charge whatever they want. Whereas if you move this to something that's a little bit more operationalized for things like Kubernetes or cloud native principles or anything that's been built since the nineties, people can go in and go, you know what?

I know how to work on this, but so do 55,000 to other people. So that makes your resources a little bit more fungible, which reduces the complexity needed to, you know, put on the shoulders of any one person, but also allows you to rotate teams in and out so that your infrastructure doesn't become, you know, effectively kind of snowflake around one or two people. And I think that that Red Hat rep recognizes this because of all the things that they've been doing over the years and they're trying to kind of break into that market like Dell was.

If Dell's the hardware side of it, red hat's the software side of it, if you're gonna have to pull this stuff out and replace it anyway, why not hire some of those new whizbang kids coming outta college who understand this Kubernetes thing and we'll build an OpenShift cluster inside of your edge and you can have them write services that run on top of that. In the meantime, your existing infrastructure people can figure out how to enable all of the other stuff that you've been doing for years on top of that infrastructure and your technical debt problems. They may not go away overnight, but they at least are significantly lessened.

And then where does that go from there? Well ask AI how to write programs for vax and they're gonna go, I don't know, I've never been trained on that, but man, it can spit out code all day long about being able to modernize your infrastructure to run on something that at least understands and all of the solutions that are gonna go out there and scan and provide, um, you know, more operational enhancements and capabilities. They're gonna need some kind of, you know, consistent infrastructure.

Because to me it's like when you go and you need to look up how to replace a part in your car, but the only person who created that video, it was like a car that was three years older than yours and none of the parts match up. So you're sitting here scratching your head, you're like, okay, he says to pull this, but that's not here. So is this the part that I need to pull?

And that's when you've already lost the game because you're gonna break something. Don't do that with your telco infrastructure. If you're looking to do this upgrade, don't give it a little bit of a push, just rip the whole thing and go with a newer solution like the one that Red Hat's proposing.

I promise you the pain you're gonna feel now, the bandaid getting ripped off is gonna feel a whole lot better than it will five years down the road when you own this infrastructure and you can't do anything about it. Excellent points. And I think that does help crystallize, you know, why the telcos are, you know, looking at cloud increasingly it's, again, it's about, you know, the lifecycle management aspect here.

It's about avoiding that technical debt. And I think that hasn't really gotten its due relative to the other considerations that are always important. You know, cost savings, uh, operationalized streamlining and so forth.

So I think that's, uh, great. And I think it's also certainly reinforcing, you know, a couple of the other themes that have come out, uh, with a lot of these initiatives that is pre-integration, uh, pre-validation or ongoing validation and so forth. So yes, I think we're gonna see the telcos relying more on, you know, their partners, their suppliers to come through, uh, uh, with, uh, these well services and uh, capabilities.

And so I think that's going to be a, you know, a key differentiator when they're thinking about, okay, how do I evolve my network? How do I really get to 5G standalone, let alone 5G advance. So really, you know, energize, you know, customer interest in, you know, why uh, they should get 5G from them beyond safe fixed wireless access in terms of, you know, new revenue streams.

And so with that, I think yes, uh, we are definitely set for an upcoming 5G factor covering a lot of these same themes. That is the ai, uh, uh, dimension. And uh, with that I'm certainly looking forward to our upcoming tech field days.

And again, thank you Tom for coming on board and talking all things 5G with us today. Well, thank you for having me, Ron. I really appreciate it.

And we've mentioned a lot of the companies that presented at Mobility Field Day. com/tech field day. We have a playlist full of all of the great stuff that we're talking about, whether it's hardware or software related, uh, you can get caught up in, in pretty quickly.

And, uh, be ready for the next one when it comes up later in the fall. Perfect. In fact, I'll be putting links into, uh, this 5G Factor webcast writeup.

So there'll be, uh, all kinds of opportunity, I believe for folks to check it out. Not only the mobility tech field day, but hey, what else is on the horizon? And with that, thank you again everyone for joining us.

Don't forget to bookmark us in terms of, you know, the 5G factor and keeping us in mind. And with that, have a great 5G and AI day, everyone.