Mycom Osi: Ringing The Changes in OSS

Q3
2018
www.mobileeurope.co.uk
@mobileeurope
SPECIAL PROMOTION:
MYCOM OSI
Ringing the changes in OSS
Group CTO of Regional CTO CTO

the Year of the Year Roundtable
Vodafone’s Johan Turkcell’s Gediz Execs from across
Wibergh talks 5G, Sezgin on taking Europe tackle the
transformation and on Netflix and industry’s future
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08 12 16
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Contents
08
16
Editors picks
28
08 Group CTO of the Year Features
Vodafone’s Johan Wibergh on
innovation, transformation and 26 Virtualisation Full Spectrum
making sure 5G thrives instead
What can operators learn from
of fails
the different approaches taken 30 News spotlight
to virtualisation by Orange,
12 Regional CTO of the Year Telefónica and Velcom? Each
The latest developments in
CTOs, network performance and
Turkcell’s Gediz Sezgin discusses operator discusses their various
innovation
the operator’s mission to change implementations of the tech and
telecoms and how it is taking the how they have overcome the
fight to the OTTs obstacle it presents 32 The Wireless World
News and innovation from around
16 CTO Roundtable 28 AI the globe
Executives from across Europe How operators are increasingly
talk digital transformation and using artificial intelligence in 34 The Final Say
revolutionising operations in an customer service, network planning Swisscom’s Heinz Herren steps
exclusive industry roundtable and automation down from CTO role
Welcome
Executive Editor: Graeme Neill
[email protected] All to play for
Design and Production: Alex Gold The annual CTO of the Year roundtable and awards is always the highlight of
my year, bringing together executives from across Europe, from the Group
Account Director: Fidi Neophytou
giants to their nimbler counterparts. Despite the differences in their business-
[email protected]
Tel: +44 (0) 207 933 8997 es, from scale to purchasing power, research budgets to the size of their teams,
their optimism and concerns about the industry share common ground.
Publisher: Wayne Darroch There is an extensive write-up of the event in this special issue where the
[email protected] CTOs talked transformation, regulation, reinvention and digitisation. What it
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7933 8999
reveals is CTOs facing the squeeze from marketers and finance teams, with the
ISSN: 1350 7362 former demanding dazzling performances to fuel price competitive deals and
the latter reining in vital spending for technology projects. It’s an impossible
Free Subscriptions model and the challenge for CTOs is showing why this spending is essential to
Mobile Europe and European Communications is a continue to support today’s networks and also prepare for those of tomorrow.
controlled circulation quarterly magazine available free
One way of overcoming these dual challenges is using the softwarisation
to selected personnel at the publisher’s discretion. If
you wish to apply for regular free copies please register of networks – a subject of one of our features in this quarter’s issue – to give
online at: www.mobileeurope.co.uk/register developers “a playground to innovate” as one CTO put it and create new capa-
bilities. Telenet CTO Michal Berger wryly noted that its innovation centre full
Paid Subscriptions of programmers produces 80 percent “garbage” but the remaining 20 percent
Readers who fall outside of the strict terms of control may
is of high quality. This, and other areas, gives CTOs a degree of confidence
purchase an annual subscription. 1 year UK subscription:
£111 one year International subscription: £139 about the years ahead. But they definitely could do with more cash.
The roundtable is the starter to the CTO of the Year’s main event – the
To purchase a subscription please call: winners of the Group and Regional CTO of the Year awards. As you will see
+44 (0)1635 879361 in the coming pages, both Vodafone Group CTO Johan Wibergh and Turkcell
CTO Gediz Sezgin are incredibly focused on innovation and invention, with a
Free subscriptions: [email protected]
Paid subscriptions: [email protected] realisation that telcos need to undergo digital transformation on many levels
Tel: +44 (0)1635 879 361 to adequately prepare for 5G.
In addition to our exploration of the latest developments in virtualisation,
Printed By which span three operators’ very different approaches to the technology,
Buxton Press
we also take a look at artificial intelligence. I’ve made a point to excise any
references to 2001’s HAL (aside from that one) as this is a technology that is
increasingly being taken more seriously, whether through network planning
or customer service. Evidently an area to watch.
Enjoy the issue. As ever, email me [email protected] to give
me your thoughts on the issue and the latest talking points affecting you in
your work.
Enjoy the issue,

Graeme Neill
The views expressed in Mobile
Europe are not necessarily those of
the editor or the publisher.
Mobile Europe is published by
SJP Business Media
2nd Floor, 123 Cannon Street
London, EC4N 5AU
Average net circulation

January-June 2017 – 4,680
TRANSFORMATION SERVICES
Digital
Transformation
Roundtable
Invitation
THURSDAY 1 NOVEMBER On Thursday 1st November, Mobile Europe & European
Communications is hosting an invite-only roundtable for a
The Mercer
select group of industry experts, titled: “Making sense of digital
34 Threadneedle St transformation: the journey to changing the face of telecoms.”
London EC2R 8AY
9am – 2pm Digital transformation is a crucial plank of any operator’s
shift to 5G. Spanning people, processes and technology, it is
arguably the biggest shift operators have ever had to undergo.
This roundtable, Mobile Europe and European

Communications’ latest exploring this issue, will delve into
how operators are designing their transformation journey
and whether they are baking in simplification or viewing that
as the destination. The shifting sands of the operator/vendor
relationship will also be discussed, as well as the risks that
Spaces are allocated to relevant senior could derail their strategy entirely.
professionals from operators only,
subject to approval. It is not available
to vendors or solutions providers. A write up of the discussion will be published in a special
The discussion is followed by a three

report in the Q4 edition of Mobile Europe & European
course networking lunch. Communications magazine.
If you are interested in taking part, please email [email protected]
For more information about Mobile Europe & European Communications

please visit www.mobileeurope.co.uk
Invitation to network operators
Telco roundtables in The Hague,

London and Paris in October 2018
We are delighted to be working with RedHat and Intel to deliver a series of thought-
leadership roundtables in European cities throughout October 2018, to discuss
opportunities and challenges of some of the fastest-growing areas for telco operators –
Media Function Virtualization (MFV) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV):
Switched on:
how media function virtualisation is revolutionising
TV and home entertainment
The software defined telco:

how to build the next generation network
Full details, dates and locations available at www.mobileeurope.co.uk/me-events
If you work for an operator and would like to take part, please apply via email to
[email protected] with your preferred roundtable and location.
Each roundtable will take form of a discussion in a small group chaired by a senior member of our editorial team and
hosted a premium city centre venue, followed by a sit-down, 3-course meal. It offers a valuable opportunity to discuss
the future direction of the telco industry and how to best take advantage of upcoming developments.
CTO of the Year 2018
The annual awards celebrating technology
excellence at mobile network operators
Kindly sponsored by:
08 GROUP CTO OF THE

YEAR - JOHAN WIBERGH,
VODAFONE GROUP
Graeme Neill talks to Johan Wibergh
about transforming telecoms internally
and externally, and the promise and
pitfalls of 5G
12 REGIONAL CTO OF THE YEAR

– GEDIZ SEZGIN, TURKCELL
The Turkcell CTO talks to James
Blackman about how to broaden an
operator’s tech strategy and be bullish
about creating your own services
16 CTO ROUNDTABLE
CTOs from across Europe discuss
achieving 5G’s potential, navigating
hype and fighting battles internally
8 CTO of the Year 2018
VODAFONE GROUP CTO:

why the most exciting time
to work in telecoms is now
Johan Wibergh was the unanimous choice for the Group CTO of the Year award, leading
Vodafone on an ongoing journey of transformation and innovation and ensuring it is
best placed to make sure 5G thrives rather than fails. He talks to Graeme Neill
Issue Q3 • www.mobileeurope.co.uk
CTO of the Year 2018 9
F
irst of all I do work too top of things and knows the details.” For cynics the network side but a lot of the new things
much,” Johan Wibergh perhaps viewing this as veiled criticism of his are happening in the digital space where you
laughs towards the end of former employer, Wibergh is quick to stress that compete with whether they are going to go to
our interview. Maybe so he was outlining the positives of his current one. Google or Facebook.” He drily adds: “These
given his tech responsibil- How this will change when Nick Read swaps guys have pretty strong brands also.”
ity for some 500+ million his Chief Financial Officer role for Group
customers, but then he CEO remains to be seen. Read’s appointment Change within
lists his hobbies, spanning is just one aspect of a Vodafone undergoing The external recruitment side of digital
photography, food and fitness, coupled with wider change. The operator has been working transformation is one thing; forcing internal
several book recommendations (especially to transform itself and prepare for the years change is another. The skillset of a 22 year
Matthew Walker’s Why We Sleep, if you are in ahead. Staff and skills are central to this but old IT graduate will be very different to that
need of your next read). Even while the books the fight is more difficult than ever. For some of a Vodafone lifer at her desk for some 20
are usually consumed in the audio format time now, Vodafone hasn’t just been compet- plus years. To overcome this, there’s Vodafone
rather than paperback, it does beg the question ing with Deutsche Telekom, Orange and the University, a company-wide scheme to bring
of where he can fit in his Group CTO duties. It like for fresh talent; it is fighting against the new proficiencies to staff.
seems clear that he relishes the challenge, set allure of Silicon Valley and the bright lights of Wibergh ultimately leads the technology
hours of the day be damned. digital giants or plucky upstarts. It and other strand of the courses, which have trained up
Wibergh made the jump to Vodafone from telcos are also battling against the attraction of more than 10,000 people during the past three
Ericsson three years ago, where he had spent someone striking out on their own; working years. He says: “We have to make sure that we
almost two decades. Why make that change after on their idea in a garage with the aim to be- balance between people coming in with new
so long? Nice company car? Excellent salary? come the next Facebook or Google. skills and working with people that maybe
“I don’t have a car,” he laughs, perhaps partly don’t have those skillsets. There’s a general
“
answering the question. He adds: “I did 19 years philosophy that it’s better to have our own
at Ericsson and the last six and a half was as head employees to work on new exciting stuff.”
of the networks business. It was more than 50 There is a lot He smiles: “You can use external people for
percent of the company’s revenue. When you of speed of acting, the less exciting stuff.” But he admits that is easier
have done something for six and a half years, you said than done; without at least training up staff
start to think ‘what’s next?’. There wasn’t probably understanding in the “less interesting stuff” you are not going
a next step for me at Ericsson. I lived abroad something then to have a well-rounded workforce. He says: “You
twice and I wasn’t done with that. [I thought] it need to prioritise your people and make sure
would be nice to live abroad again.” acting on it quickly they have the right competencies.”
Living abroad previously meant Brazil and Digital transformation within an operator is
the United States. This time around it’s brought the inevitable reaction to an industry in flux,
him to Marylebone, central London, where he Vodafone is a 27 year old brand so how can shifting from LTE to 5G and anticipating and
walks to Vodafone’s nearby offices in Padding- it keep up? Wibergh admits it is a hard fight hoping to capitalise on the wave of the Internet
ton each day. He says: “I’ve been extremely to employ the next generation but says it has of Things. Between his chairing of NGMN and
pleased to move here. I really enjoy London. recruited more than 600 people in IT and Vodafone’s multitude of trials and research
First of all I think it’s a very beautiful city, digital across Europe in the past three years. across its markets, Wibergh has been among
the architecture is so nice. English people are During the past six, 8,000 people have been the most vocal about 5G’s potential, and where
extremely friendly and it’s very easy...to like it.” hired to work in IT development, operations it could fall apart.
It’s not quite poacher turns gamekeeper but testing and the like. Delivering his 5G elevator pitch, he splits it
the shift from vendor to operator requires a Wibergh lays out Vodafone’s advantages: into short term and long term models. “In the
change in mindset. Wibergh says both compa- “First of all I think we have a strong brand, which coming two years, what will drive 5G deploy-
nies have more things in common than are dif- helps. The brand is well-known, quite modern, ment will be smartphones and a cheaper way
ferent but says Vodafone’s culture, led until this loaded with things like speed etc. We have a of delivering data. It will be more driven by
October by Vittorio Colao, is what stands out as a fairly exciting technology environment, we have countries like China, who has a greater need to
differentiator. He says: “There is a lot of speed of a network that handles 500 million customers, get more mobile capacity. 5G then becomes a
acting, understanding something then acting on mobile, fixed - we can wholesale to reach more more cost effective way of pushing it out.”
it quickly. Another thing is a very good culture than 100 million households with fixed broad- He adds: “But if you take a step back and
in Vodafone about really knowing your things. band, we operate as our own in almost 40 million talk about what happened with 4G and 5G.
People are extremely knowledgeable and Vittorio households...It’s one of the biggest networks in 4G was really about enabling smartphones.
has really trained up the organisation. If you go the world in terms of traffic.” 4G came just after the iPhone and Android
to Vittorio with something you know he will ask He adds: “We’ve an advanced technical phones and really made smartphones great.
you five million questions. You better make sure environment so you can actually do quite a 5G, if you look at the coming 10 years you will
you have the answers. Management is really on lot of things. We have very strong skills on say that this is when IoT really happened and
ture that other companies can innovate and

Ready player one: Vodafone’s
sponsorship of e-gaming is create...new services.”
dovetailing into its 5G trials When I suggest operators need to build in a
5G equivalent of SMS, very much an example
of user generated telco innovation, he agrees
and adds: “Having the SMS capability gave us a
lot of applications that utilised that and drove
traffic. When it comes to low latency, we are
looking at MEC, mobile edge computing. It’s
enabling these things in the right way [that
will] create new services.”
This is where the longer-term gains come in
with the Internet of Things. Wibergh presents it
as a toolbox, with enterprises able to tap into the
cellular LTE-M and NB-IoT technologies now
and 5G for more data hungry or super dense re-
quirements in the future. He works alongside the
consumer and enterprise IoT teams, ensuring the
operator’s network is fit for purpose. The variety
of opportunities within the Internet of Things
also means the future is slightly hard to predict,
argues Wibergh. “I’m not sure what will come
first and in what order these things will come.”
really became big. That doesn’t technically Of course, 5G’s consumer appeal is not just
mean that everything needs to use 5G.” He centred on smartphones, Given his back- Breadth of testing
pauses. “That’s a long elevator ride!” ground in IT, his memories of playing Pong Use cases aside, Wibergh is non-committal on
Efficiency gains are something Wibergh during the 1970s, and Vodafone’s recent spon- Vodafone’s 5G launch. It could be 2020, could
has argued as an advantage of 5G for some sorship of e-gaming, I ask whether he has tried be sooner, could be later. But its research ac-
time, but it’s hardly the sexiest use case. The low-latency gaming through a 5G network, tivity has demonstrated its desire not to be left
Vodafone Group CTO begs to differ: “As an one of the most commonly cited short term behind. It has set up three testbeds, diplomat-
industry we are not known for being cap- use cases. “Not yet. Not yet,” he deadpans. ically using each of the three major vendors.
itally efficient. If you look at it we are not “No-one has offered it to me.” Spain is home to its research with Huawei,
really earning enough to pay back the cost of Italy with Nokia and Germany with Ericsson.
“
capital...People go wrong and look at what you It used Mobile World Congress in Barcelona to
make based on EBITDA but EBITDA is before demonstrate a 5G data call in partnership with
all of the investments, whether it’s spectrum If you look the Chinese vendor. It plans to use its Milanese
or equipment. If you look at profitability for testbed to roll out 100 5G sites by the end of
operators, we are not doing that great.” at profitability for 2018. The work with universities taking part
It’s fair to say that Wibergh is pessimistic about operators, we are in the three testbeds also gives it a potential
5G’s short term revenue potential, hence the source of new graduates.
focus on efficiency. The first wave of 5G phones not doing that great He is bone dry about how he has to balance
will likely be the generation’s most expensive, this desire not to be left behind and the
which is hardly encouraging for a mass market appetite to explore 5G’s potential, with the
revenue success. He says: “There will be some Pocker-faced frivolity aside, he shares the challenge to sell this internally to those who
[sales boost] but it’s not proven. That’s what opinion of BT/EE’s Fotis Karonis, who told will pay for it. He says: “On one side you say
the industry is debating. Some are bullish and me last issue that 5G should be a platform ‘we are launching something, we are not going
say there will be a lot of revenue opportunities; for others to innovate on top of. Wibergh to have much revenue short term and it’s only
some are bearish and say ‘no, it will be hard’. We says: “For the various people and the going to cost you, yes, we need to buy some
have certain ideas but it’s not obvious that we applications, it is for them to innovate on spectrum so a few billion euros on that and
are going to be able to generate a lot of revenue that. We need to put in place something that we need to buy new equipment but we have to
growth.” He adds: “Short term, it’s not a great makes it easy for other companies to inno- do it’. So we end up in a little bit of a debate on
business case financially but it’s not an option not vate and produce some great things. It’s not that,” he says, impressively straight-faced.
to be out there. Vodafone is a technology leader up to us as operators to have a great deal of “If you look at the investment over a time
so it’s not an option to be late in the market expertise in every vertical like this. We need period, you will get cost savings on the data
versus your competition.” very much to put in place an easy infrastruc- and that’s why you need to think about it. On
the other hand, we have been very clear to architecture. This was followed late last year by JUDGES’ VERDICTS
the market that what we are doing with these implementing a cloud native container-based
things fits within our regular capex budget.” software environment, as well as further explo-
Like most western European operators, he ration of automation.
looks to China as the dream, “where spectrum Compared to its 5G work, Vodafone has
costs basically nothing”, as he puts it. However, largely kept progress of OCEAN under wraps. In
this is tempered with his view that 5G is effec- a way, it has been subsumed by something much
tively an “add-on” to LTE, meaning Vodafone larger as Vodafone began exploring how cloud-
can use existing sites and undergo a more ification could transform and introduce more
CAROLINE GABRIEL
gradual build out. He adds: “It is correct that 5G consistency and automation into its network, IT
Co-founder and Research Director,
will use high frequency spectrum, which will go and enterprise services. Rethink Technology Research
shorter distances than others. But since we used Wibergh describes automation as central
beamforming, that makes the signal go longer so to the operator’s digital transformation, which Johan Wibergh has led a coordinated and
the grid that we have that is built for 1800MHz visionary strategy to include new tech-
explains why it joined ONAP last year to
nologies in an increasingly heterogeneous
sites fits nicely for 5G.” collaborate further within this space. The Linux
network. He also recognises that technology
He says 5G’s implementation should be easier Foundation-led project is aiming to build an
upgrades are not enough on their own,
than 3G, at least on the technology side if not open-source neutral platform for network, and the Digital Vodafone program aims to
necessarily the business side. He says: “As a infrastructure and service automation. Its mem- leverage the improved networks to support
decent add-on to a 4G network it gets a little bit bership of more than 50 telcos accounts for more greatly enhanced customer experience.
easier than to put in 3G. 3G was very difficult be- than 60 percent of the world’s mobile subscribers.
The judges were also impressed by
cause the technology was much more immature. Momentum is growing after the completion
Wibergh’s high level of public profile,
The products were bad, worse quality and there of ONAP’s first project last year. In Vodafone’s
including his chairmanship of the NGMN
was a lot of software quality problems when it view, ONAP represents an opportunity to move Alliance. These activities ensure that
came to 3G. The reason was there was so much beyond a proprietary virtualisation model, Vodafone is represented in many impor-
functionality on the 3G products and the quality which in effect OCEAN was. How confident is tant initiatives, and which contribute to
of the software was not good enough. Wibergh that it will succeed? He says: “From my the global progress towards next genera-
“The industry learned so when we did 4G, viewpoint what’s most important is that we get tion platforms.
at least what I remember from what Ericsson one framework...my top priority is to have one
did, we reduced the functionality to the killer set of standards around this. Priority number
functionality of quality. The need to improve two is one set of standards. Priority three; one set
quality was really high and it was really high of standards. I would compromise anything to
on the products. They performed really well get that in place. I’m extremely supportive of any
so it was a great customer experience. We initiatives that can achieve one set of standards.
hope the same thing will happen with 5G. It’s “There’s a lot of momentum around ONAP.
important to have a high quality performance I hope that will succeed and I don’t mind us
rather than a bunch of different features.” stopping doing things if it means I can get one
set of standards established in the world. All
KESTER MANN
Reinvention this work is hard to get people to agree to.” As
Principal Analyst, CCS Insight
Preparing for 5G has also meant Vodafone re- any telco working on any standards project
inventing its network. Legacy is being stripped will testify. Johan was the stand-out candidate
out – “we have plenty of legacy,” he says with Wibergh says ONAP’s original architecture for the Group award having overseen
some understatement. It’s never a straight was aimed at one big operator in one country; impressive improvements to both Voda-
fone’s existing networks and the devel-
swap of old for new because “we have to something that wouldn’t work for Vodafone, “a
opment of a range of new technologies.
balance between what the economic lifecycle small operator in many countries” as Wibergh
His efforts were illustrated by improv-
is and what’s the stability of the new products puts it. But he is undeterred by the challenges ing network reliability metrics and good
versus the legacy products”. Nevertheless, 3G facing the industry. gains in Net Promoter Score.
will be switched off first in the Netherlands Between automation, transformation and
in 2020, followed by other markets. 2G will the next generation of telecoms, plus his ex- We were particularly impressed by the
consistent progress made across Voda-
follow around 2025, with a small chunk kept tra-curricular activities, one might think there
fone’s broad European footprint, which
for M2M and roaming. aren’t enough hours in the day for Wibergh to
includes many markets exhibiting vastly
Then there’s OCEAN, Vodafone’s attempt tackle these tasks. But he is undeterred about different characteristics. The company’s
to stitch virtualisation and cloud technologies the challenges facing the industry. He says: efforts in NB-IoT stood out as Johan over-
into its network. It was launched two years “There’s a lot of really exciting stuff happening saw both the development and launch of
ago, beginning with the shift of its voice and in technology. We are lucky to live in this time this new technology.
network core across the Group to virtualised period with so many things going on.”
Turkcell CTO:
“We want to change the destiny
of the telecoms industry”
Turkcell has a singular vision for digital transformation, which has seen it outrun OTTs in its
home market. Gediz Sezgin, the Turkish operator’s CTO and the industry’s newly-crowned
Regional CTO of the Year, tells James Blackman about its mission to change telecoms
O
ur target is not just the formation that Sezgin is just about the only tech backs. “But we do it with our own capabilities.”
Turkish diaspora, or the chief at this magazine’s CTO of the Year event It was the same at Mobile World Congress in
wider Middle East. We in London (see page 16) to present authentic Barcelona in February, and any number of trade
are targeting the whole solutions to the industry’s grandest challenges. shows in between, where Sezgin’s boss, Turkcell
world,” comments Gediz How can operators compete with the over-the- chief Kaan Terzioglu, has cut a singularly assured
Sezgin, Senior VP of top providers with fewer physical assets and freer figure with a David-and-Goliath tale about Turk-
Network Technology at Turkcell. business models? It is a question that goes round cell taking on the ‘internet giants’, and winning.
A modest start but it is a mark of the Turkish and round the table in London, until it falls to In an industry filled with uncertainty about
operator’s confidence in its own digital trans- Sezgin. “We do the same as them,” he shoots its role in the digital world, Turkcell talks like a
leader with a blueprint for digital reinvention. “So we built a future-proofed network infra- FTTH services, with 3.1 million Turkish
“Our ambition for global growth is driven by structure,” says Sezgin. It acquired the largest homes passed by the end of 2017.
our digital services and our operational models,” holding from the 2015 spectrum auction in
comments Sezgin after the London session. Turkey. It now has 234MHz of spectrum across Striking oil
Sezgin, awarded Regional CTO of the Year multiple bands, both paired and unpaired It is a comprehensive scope of work, for sure.
at the Mobile Europe and European Commu- spectrum for frequency division duplex (FDD) But the focus in the last 12 months, which
nications event, is responsible for designing and time division duplex (TDD). It is the larg- Mobile Europe and European Communications
the technological foundation for Turkcell’s new est FDD spectrum owner in Europe. recognised, has had rather less to do with radio
services push. It has been a heavy workload, “We had only a very short period to launch and fibre data transport, and more to do with
he notes, weighed down by the rapid rollout of it following the tender. We used the time well,” data storage. Operators must master every aspect
a nationwide 4.5G radio network, which has he says. It invested in the latest capacity opti- of data handling, says Sezgin, if they are to re-
included two-carrier aggregation, 4x4 MIMO misation, higher order modulation and carrier emerge as digital providers.
and 256 QAM technologies from the start. aggregation techniques as standard. Its teams “We have taken very important steps in our
Alongside this, Sezgin has devised twin NB- covered 790,000 square kilometres of Turkish digital transformation over the last three years.
IoT and LTE-M capabilities, an upgraded 10G countryside in the rollout, including hard The basis of it is data, which is like the oil of
optical transport network, and faster fibre-to- terrains and rough climates. In line with the today. But producing data alone is not enough.
the-home (FTTH). He has also layered in a country’s ‘universal service’ law, it has sought What is important is to process it, keep it in
flexible screen of virtualised and self-organ- to connect outlying regions, rolling out 4.5G our country, and ensure its security,” he says.
ising functions over the top. All his work has services to 1,799 villages, where it already pro- In line with the teachings of the new GDPR
been geared towards a single goal: to remake vides 2G coverage but skipped 3G altogether. regulations in Europe, Turkcell has sought to
Turkcell as a ‘digital services provider’. keep its data close at hand. “Turkey’s data should
“
The arrival of 5G will consolidate its position, stay in Turkey,” comments Sezgin. The compa-
he says, by multiplying out both the user’s expe- ny has spent TRY615 million (€97 million) on
rience and the network’s capabilities. “Speed will Technology “next-generation data centres” since 2016; it
generate data, and people and things will interact opened its largest facility in İzmir, on the western
more. There will be vast opportunities for opera-
moves fast and shores of Anatolia, at the start of the summer.
tors. All the tools needed to process data, and all mobile technologies “Turkcell has become the largest data centre
the experiences created as a result, will happen at and cloud services operator in the country,
very high speeds,” he says.
occupy a special while cementing Turkey’s goal to evolve into
space a global hub for data centres in the region,”
Network service comments Sezgin. Its total spending will climb
Sezgin started at Turkcell a year after its foun- to TRY2 billion (€316.2 million) by the time
dation in 1995, as one of the company’s first “Having captured the leadership, we have only it has completed data centres in Ankara and
network engineers. At the time, he had just strengthened our position since,” says Sezgin. Corlu by the end of 2019.
completed military service, after an education Turkcell has achieved 90 percent population Just as the demand being placed on its systems
in engineering at Istanbul Technical Univer- coverage, is one of just seven networks to achieve has become multi-faceted, its corresponding net-
sity, and a first job at the Turkish branch of 1GBps speeds, according to the Global Mobile work infrastructure is suddenly labyrinthine. As
equipment vendor Alcatel. Suppliers Association, and was the second opera- per contemporary network operations, Turkcell
Following a variety of senior roles in in- tor after Telstra to hit 1.2GBps. is running a trio of networks across five different
formation and communication technologies, In general, its baseline of broadband con- spectrum bands between 800MHz and 2.6GHz,
he was appointed Senior Vice President of nectivity is bouncier in every way. Following with coverage supported by a combination of
Network Technologies in 2015, just as Turkcell tests of low-power wide-area (LPWA) tech- macro and small cells.
was setting a new course. He has witnessed its nologies in early 2017, it flicked the switch on It has maintained KPIs for voice and data
development over two decades, and taken a twin NB-IoT and LTE-M networks for Internet services, even as new network layers have been
closer role in its strategy. “It makes me proud,” of Things services, notably for smart cities. It added during 2017. Nevertheless, its com-
he says, looking back. has LPWA pilots with water, electricity and gas plexity requires simplification and Turkcell
The single project that satisfied him the companies, and partnerships for vehicle track- deployed a centralised SON platform to create
most is the company’s work on 4.5G, in late ing and healthcare, as well as that strange and order from the chaos, automating the most
2015 and early 2016, which kicked off the explicably popular IoT favourite, bee-keeping. critical network functions. “We are moving to-
company’s technology revolution. “It is an Sezgin’s team has enabled “end-to-end” wards our goal of becoming a digital operator.
exceptional source of pride,” he says. Turkcell redundancy in its optical transport network, Automation is an instrument of our 5G vision,
was the first operator anywhere to launch a he says, with sub-second convergence and as well. The whole industry has to automate to
three-carrier 3G UMTS service, with down- seamless multi-protocol label switching. The manage network complexity,” says Sezgin.
load speeds of 63MBps; it wanted the same undisputed king of fibre in its home market, In behind, Turkcell has promised to virtualise
advantage in the 4G era. Turkcell is offering multi-play over 10GBps 50 percent of its core network in its developing
Edge computing: İzmir, on a processed data services provider - to compete,

the shores of Anatolia, is the and be on the winning side.”
home to Turkcell’s largest
The old operator community, which can ap-
data centre facility
pear encumbered by costly radio licences and
expensive network infrastructure, have certain
advantages in their relationship with data
because of their history. They are more reliable
and better trusted than internet companies, he
suggests. “This will provide significant oppor-
tunities in the upcoming period.”
But operators have to ready themselves first.
“That’s what we have done in the last three
years. We transformed into the world’s first real
digital operator.” He describes a company that
has moved decisively from bundling airtime to
selling over-the-top services. “For Turkcell, real
convergence is not about fixed and mobile but
about infrastructure and OTT services.”
Turkcell has grown faster than any telecoms
operator in Europe over the last two years, on the
back of an expanding roster of digital services,
which each rework familiar OTT templates for
an expanding crowd. BiP is an instant messaging
service like WhatsApp, fizy offers Spotify-like
audio streaming, TV+ offers Netflix-style video
cloud set-up within three years. It has the in- at a time. All of its infrastructure building and streaming, and Yaani provides Turkish language
frastructure in place to deliver, he reckons, with optimisation is geared towards this purpose. search. It has introduced a personal cloud service
an infrastructure capacity of 200GBps already Indeed, Turkcell’s singular vision about digital called Lifebox, and a magazine syndication app
virtualised on its data service network, and a transformation is arguably more clearly grasped called Dergilik.
cloud capacity of up to two million subscribers than by any European operator brand. Digital Half of Turkcell’s 37.6 million subscribers al-
on its voice service network. services and solutions will play a “bigger part in ready use its digital services and some of them
In terms of network functions, it has a customers’ lives” than just phone calls and data are outrunning their better-known reference
stated target to virtualise 75 percent by 2020. sessions, and it wants part of the action. models in the Turkish market. “We have left
“
Again, it’s on track, with six percent in the behind Spotify and Netflix,” says Sezgin. There
bag already, and a pathway to 18 percent by are cities in Anatolia, he says, where usage of
the year-end. It has established a centralised BiP has caught up with WhatsApp.
virtualisation infrastructure (NFVi), in the The whole Yaani was downloaded a million times in its
shape of its ‘unified telco cloud,’ and set about
industry has to first nine days, and five million times in eight
its Gi-LAN, EPC and IMS core, claiming months since last October. Lifebox is Turkey’s
“remarkable” gains in the process. automate to most popular personal cloud service. More
“We plan to virtualise all network components
manage network than five million magazines and newspapers
to have a more flexible architecture. Transfor- are downloaded each month in Dergilik.
mation from a customised, hardware oriented, complexity Turkcell’s Hello Hope app, which enables com-
vendor dependent structure to standardised, munication between Turks and Syrian refugees
software oriented and vendor independent is one in the country, has been downloaded half a
of the key means to make network components “The data revolution has created trillions dol- million times and was lauded by the GSMA for
more flexible,” states Sezgin. lars of value. But not for the telecoms companies its humanitarian credentials.
carrying the data,” Sezgin says. “In the last 10 Turkcell has developed application tracking
Switching off Netflix and drowning years, OTT companies have used telecoms infra- functions in its network to enable enhanced
out Spotify structure to reach billions of users. Telcos have charging models that “favour” its own digital
Turkcell has a line, which it repeats on the con- missed an opportunity. They have to change their services, “to increase the take up rate and
ference circuit and in trade discussions, about minds to compete with the OTT providers.” Em- usage, which in the end improves loyalty and
filling customers’ time with digital services. boldened by its advancing technology, Turkcell decreases churn”, as Sezgin puts it. In other
It talks about there being 1,440 minutes in a is one such operator. “We can’t just act as a raw words, it is slicing its 4.5G network up in order
day, and taking a large number of them, each data handler,” he says. “We have to transform to to enhance the experience with and drive
loyalty to its own digital services. 4.5G activity during the past two years. It has al- JUDGES’ VERDICTS
Sezgin explains: “Each individual service ready trialed 5G test equipment in the 71.5-73.5
has different service level requirements in GHz range, hitting top speeds of 70GBps. “It is
terms of throughput, delay, availability and so one of the highest data transmission speeds ever
on. By designing a slicing structure - which is achieved with 5G,” notes Sezgin.
central to 5G, but which Turkcell has already The company has tested and developed Mas-
implemented in basic form with 4.5G - each sive MIMO techniques in its live network, also
service is evaluated separately.” geared towards high speeds in dense areas and
will be the first in the region to test techniques
BENGT NORDSTROM
Technological destiny for FDD Massive MIMO systems. “In terms CEO, Northstream
This service-based slicing has allowed Turkcell of product readiness most of our network is
to manage and streamline the performance of ready for 5G Release 15,” he says. Spearheaded by its CTO, Turkcell has become
well known for its commitment to technology and
its own digital products, and boost its overall Now Release 15 is ‘frozen’, rubber-stamped
innovations. It has a strong track record of pio-
numbers. “2017 was a year in which we reached for standardisation, Turkcell is to start testing
neering new services such as HSPA+ and VoLTE.
important milestones in our digital transforma- ‘non standalone’ 5G with vendors, starting
tion,” he says. These include a new digital brand, field trials immediately, and upgrading its 2017 has been a year of many important accom-
Lifecell Ventures, to disseminate Turkish content core network to a fully SDN-enabled and plishments of Sezgin and his team. Among the most
via operators around the globe. significant ones to mention are: delivery of 1GBps
NFV-based architecture in preparation for
mobile broadband service, 90 percent population
“Turkcell wants to grow by making its services ‘standalone’ 5G.
coverage of 4.5G services in Turkey and becoming
available globally. But not like these typical In the end, digitalisation is the most important
first operator in the world to offer to support both
imperialistic digital companies. We want to issue, says Sezgin, and for any Chief Technology NB-IoT and LTE-M across its entire network.
build up a franchising model, where we gather Officer. “As the world’s first digital operator, 5G
our international affiliates under the roof of the means a lot for us - it’s not just a new technology, Gediz Sezgin is recognised as a strong influ-
encer of the telecom industry both in Turkey
Lifecell brand. We want to change the destiny of but a major step for network digitalisation. We
and internationally. In addition to driving 5G
the telecoms industry,” he explains. need to make sure to create an end to end virtual
development in his native Turkey he is also an
Lifecell Ventures is offering revenue sharing, network, which is software based, rather than
executive member of GSMA Technology Group
white labeling, and operator branded solu- hardware oriented,” he says. and NGMN board.
tions. It has started talks with Russian internet There is work to do, however. “It can’t be
company Mail.ru, which commands more done, end to end for the whole network,
screen time in Russia than any other site, to within the first years. It is very important to
boost its digital solutions and international have a clear roadmap to transform into a fully
reach. “We’re planning to exchange know-how software-centric, virtual entity,” he says.
and business experience to expand our global This idea of the convergence of digital infra-
digital footprints.” structure and services must be put in process,
Turkcell has seen a rapid return on its by every function of the business. “We’re not
gamble for reinvention. Its annual revenues just focused on the technical side of the 5G; PAYAM TAAGHOL
jumped 17.5 percent in the first quarter, to we’re not only working as a technical team. We CEO, MYCOM OSI
TRY4.8 billion (€757.3 million), with 536,000 are united, with marketing, sales and digital Under the leadership of Sezgin, Turkcell is setting
net additions, including 155,000 on contracts. services. We are creating a business oriented new standards in Turkey, the region and indeed
Three in five of its 35 million plus customers roadmap for 5G,” he says. the world, achieving many world firsts.
take three services, at three times the ARPU, We speak before the financial turmoil that The network innovation has been outstanding
including at least one from its digital portfolio. gripped Turkey in the late summer. Regardless - the 4.5G network rollout reaching 90 percent
The work of Sezgin’s team in the back- of the uncertain situation within the country, coverage of the population in Turkey at a speed
ground, in terms of radio upgrades, has the mood within Turkcell is confident, reflecting up to 1.2GBps commercial traffic, the launch of
enabled the company’s rebirth, and set it on the status of the “world’s first digital operators”. VoLTE, VoWifi and SMSoIP and the adoption of
a pioneering course with 5G. Its current in- Sezgin says: “Turkcell stands out; it operates with the Enhanced Voice Service technology and of
vestments in NFV infrastructure have created the spirit of a leader; it also positions me as a the Self-Organising Network are just some of the
reusable resources, he explains, which can be leader in my role, which I am very proud of.” success stories worth celebrating.
used for architectural changes such as control He rounds off: “Technology moves fast - Sezgin’s adoption of cutting edge technologies
and user-plane separation of EPC nodes and what was a dream yesterday is a reality today. and innovative solutions has had a significant
edge computing. And mobile technologies, especially, occupy a commercial impact on Turkcell, whilst the
“It has given us the edge to be one of the special space. All the big stories revolve around excellent performance and quality of the net-
first operators in the world to implement latest data and intelligence. To be in the midst of work and the expansion of the digital services
features of 3GPP,” comments Sezgin. Turkcell has this, to be working with these technologies, is offering have provided an impressive increase in
customer satisfaction.
put “a lot of attention on 5G readiness” with its very exciting to me.”
CTO of the Year Roundtable:

the hype and the glory
Under the header Facing the Future, the mobile industry’s leading CTOs assembled in
London earlier this summer to define the challenges and opportunities they face with
digital transformation and the rollout of 5G. James Blackman reports
PARTICIPANTS
MICHA BERGER, CTO, Telenet
BRYN JONES, CTO, Three UK
E
FOTIS KARONIS, MD, Mobile and
Voice Convergence at BT/EE
xcept for certain old habits, CTO at Belgium’s Proximus, and last year’s
ANDY MACLEOD, ex-CTO for Africa,
which are always the hard- Regional CTO of the Year, kicks things off with a Middle East and Asia, Vodafone
est to break, everything is view of the intensifying regulatory environment. KESTER MANN, Principal Analyst,
in play and nothing is in The weight of regulation, most recently made CCS Insight
the way. That is the con- heavier by the introduction of the GDPR protec- GRAEME NEILL, Executive Editor,
clusion of a wide-ranging tion of consumer information, will continue to Mobile Europe and European
discussion among leading be a burden, he says. “We have a role to educate, Communications
technologists on the eve of so politicians and regulators understand how BENGT NORDSTROM, CEO,
Mobile Europe’s 2018 CTO of the Year Awards things work - so they understand the conse- Northstream
in London about this industry’s own digital quences of their decisions.” The economic value GEDIZ SEZGIN, VP, Network
transformation. of mobile broadband in Europe will be also Technology, Turkcell
The session starts looking back, with a ques- stimulated or stymied by regulation. “However GEERT STANDAERT, CTO, Proximus
tion about the most considerable challenge for hard we work in Brussels, the wrong policies will PAYAM TAAGHOL, CEO, MYCOM OSI
operators in the last 12 months. Geert Standaert, put spokes in the wheels,” he says. RADOSLAV ZLATKOV, CTO, Vivacom
His second point sets the tone for the rest of very efficient; we are constantly optimising let software engineers loose in this environ-
the session. The market’s ambition is outrun- our bottom line.” The trick with back-office ment, to give them a playground in which to
ning its means or, rather, its hype is out of con- transformation is to keep it out of sight of innovate. We should have innovation centres,
trol. “There is a difference between the mar- shareholders, it seems. “We have to hide strate- and challenge each other.”
keting and the reality,” he says, joking about gic things in behind,” confesses Zlatkov. Telenet opened an innovation centre in
remembering the days when straight-talking Brussels late last year, he notes, and staffed
engineers set the agenda. Urgency and the weight of history it with graduate programmers. “We have
“Nowadays, you have to put a giant filter This unhinged dynamic means practically every brought students in, and there are great things
over the marketing. We all know the promise task in network operations soon becomes urgent. coming out of it. Yes, 80 percent ends up in the
of NFV and SDN - around time-to-market, Thirty percent of the work in Zlatkov’s depart- garbage, but 20 percent is really good,” he says.
agility, and cost - but you sign up to these ment was classified as ‘strategic’ two years ago, he Almost as an aside, he suggests over-fa-
business cases with your blood, and your says; that figure is closer to 70 percent now. How miliarity in the telecoms market has bred
CFO wants to know if they don’t deliver [the can operators do so much more with so much complacency. The industry needs to diversify;
forecasted returns] immediately.” less, just to maintain the status quo? new blood brings new ideas. “Perhaps the fact
The effect is like a runaway train. Marginal Standaert sums up the dilemma for en- we see so much of each other is not always a
gains are sold as rapid transformations by des- gineering teams. “We are being asked to go good thing. As an industry, we need to bring
perate vendors, he suggests. A dose of old fash- further in our digital transformation - to de- new people in.”
ioned realism is required. “That engineer-to-en- ploy 5G, rollout fibre, and support 70 percent The sentiment chimes with the rest of
gineer debate is needed again,” he says. higher demand for data - with the same capital the panel, which collectively describes the
But it is not just the vendors; operators are telecoms market as rather long in the tooth.
“
shovelling in the coal as well. “Marketers are “There is a serious point in there, that we are
putting more gigabytes into the packages,” he 20 years older than the industries we compete
adds. The rest of the panel picks up the thread. The difference with,” remarks Andy MacLeod, former Chief
“The marketing team is putting pressure Technology Officer at Vodafone. “When Voda-
on the networks,” says Micha Berger, Chief
between the fone started, the jobs were doing this,” he says,
Technology Officer at fellow Belgian operator expectation and pointing upwards. Not anymore, he says. “You
Telenet. “We’ve been giving away more and can see the thought process: ’Is this where I’m
more. It’s like it’s the only way we know how to
reality is getting going to be for 20 years?’”
sell - to play around with the bundles.” wider and wider The echo around the table confirms this
He reverts to a familiar industry plot-line. as a hard truth. Bengt Nordström, CEO at
“The challenge is not to become a utility com- Northstream, and a judge for CTO of the Year,
pany. If you’re investing more because usage budget, and targets to bring costs down,” he talks about redundancy programmes within
is going up, and your ARPU is flat, even on a explains. “Even if we take a filtered view of the operators, and the challenge for veterans of
good day, then it’s an impossible model.” next 10 years - and I don’t mean the [inflated] the industry to change horses. “There’s not
Radoslav Zlatkov, CTO at Bulgaria’s Vi- Ericsson and Cisco view - then the challenge is that many places to find a new job, so you
vacom, agrees. “The difference between the enormous. We have to find new ways.” better stick with what you know,” he says. “It
expectation and reality is getting wider and Which poses the question again about ‘fac- makes us protective of change. In a growing
wider.” But the pressure from within is not ing the future’, and what operators should do job market, it would be different, because you’d
just from edgy marketing teams, but from to catch a sail on the rising digital swell, which happily explore new things.”
impatient shareholders. “They measure us in is about to pull everything from its mooring. The answer is to “embrace diversity into
months, quarters, years,” he says. Berger at Telenet reckons operators should put the equation”, comments Fotis Karonis, MD
In most cases, they have neither the time urgent focus on software innovation, and fol- for Mobile and Voice Convergence at BT/EE.
for digital transformation, nor the stomach low the course of younger internet companies. “Different skills and cultures will challenge a
for industrial revolution. “No one is willing to “We should change our industry by creating company, and move it forward. The inclination
accept the transformation costs - which will capabilities we haven’t had before. We have is to hire people that reflect your own world
probably come out as an effect after several to start by building strong networks. That is view. But change can’t be achieved by sticking
years,” says Zlatkov. the foundation. We have to be smart in the with the same mindset.”
“My supervisory board wants to know why infrastructure we put in the air, in the ground, That world view, informed by legacy and ex-
I’m burning their money. I explain it’s crucial. in data centres. But we have to put more into perience, is an issue for telecoms. What would
In the end, they give me room to breathe software and innovation to build new prod- be required for the industry to embrace failure
because I am achieving short-term targets on a ucts,” he says. as a means to learning, as Berger suggests with
quarterly basis.” “We should be doing this within network his 20/80 ratio for grassroots innovation? The
Working in a pressurised market like operations, and not just waiting for vendors industry is struggling to reconcile its past with
Bulgaria, “with probably the lowest ARPU in and marketers to come up with ideas. We are its future, and to find a course between, away
Europe”, creates certain discipline. “We are used to deploying boxes in fields. We need to from the siren song of utility provision.
“Our biggest challenge is understanding what but in every market. Netflix is based in California, Taaghol says the gap between how much
to do with digital,” remarks MacLeod, at once but it serves the whole world,” he says. Physical customers are willing to pay for OTT players
drawing a distinction with the age-old battle to infrastructure is this market’s albatross, suggests and operator services is stark. “ADT charges
market airtime. “Because that’s us trying to move Nordström. “The idea of building a Facebook for me £35 per month for my alarm system, Spo-
into this layer around us. That’s what we have to the UK is not going to fly. That’s the limitation for tify charges me £19 per month for music, and
wrap our heads around. The problem of unlim- operators. The question is how to compete when you all charge £25 for connectivity, anywhere
ited data is a tactical one, but it’s something we your competitors have a global market. Telefónica in Europe. It is just too cheap. How can opera-
know. As an industry, I’m not sure we know how and Vodafone have 30 percent of their markets, tors survive, always doing more for less?”
to do the digital piece nearly as well.” but they can’t scale as global businesses.” “You make your own Spotify,” responds
In the end, scale is more easily achieved over Gedin Sezgin, Chief Technology Officer at
Handcuffed by hardware the top of the internet, observes MacLeod. Turkcell. “You have the network, the custom-
Payam Taaghol, CEO at MYCOM OSI, provider “Those companies are all on-net, and most of ers, and other advantages as well. You know,
of service assurance and analytics to network op- us are off-net. More of the world is off-net for WhatsApp can make app-to-app calls, but,
erators, and another judge for the awards, points Vodafone than is on-net.” He compares the with a network, we can make app-to-network
to the different business models, contrasting pay- internet experience offered by social media calls. It brings important differentiation.”
ing local subscribers hooked on mobile services, to the ‘walled garden’ environments first pre- Turkcell has modelled itself as the “first
with a global audience served by advertising sented by mobile operators in the early days of digital operator” with the launch of a roster
and less critically dependent on their providers. 3G. “It is a model that works because you don’t of services straight out of the OTT playbook
How can their profits flow so easily, when this have to negotiate.” (see interview, page 12), which it is making
industry’s are so becalmed, he wants to know. Across the table, Zlatkov agrees. “They are available globally. “We changed our minds;
“We haven’t figured out how to make money, and not regulated; we are. It is hard to fight with we become a digital operator - the first in the
they have. What is the barrier?” The clue is in the someone that is completely free. They also world,” explains Sezgin. “We started to develop
name, he suggests, in the ‘operation’ of networks. have different expectations. Their failure rates our own digital applications.”
It is an explanation that works for Berger, who are much higher than ours. We cannot fail. If It sounds simple. Is Turkey a special case?
expands his earlier point about innovation. “We we failed once, it could bring down the entire Could an operator in the UK, say, do that?
are bound to our infrastructure; those companies business.” However, he notes that that risk is “There aren’t many like us,” he admits. “There
are only bound to their ideas. We should use our not stopping the operator from a developing is a way to go, yet, but you have to start
infrastructure to be the most efficient we can be, “cooperation” on small-scale engineering pro- somewhere. Last year, our revenue growth was
but we shouldn’t be handcuffed to it. We should jects between Vivacom and its OTT partners 23 percent - twice the rate of the second best
be able to innovate, not just in our home market, in Bulgaria. growth of any operator in Europe.”
“That’s unfair. Just thanks to digital appli- all programme our smart homes. That’s not especially for tier-two brands locked in single
cations?” asks Berger. “Yes, most of it comes straightforward for everyone. There must be markets. Proximus jostles with Orange Group,
from there,” Sezgin replies. “But we launched a opportunity in that.” Telenet, and Liberty in Belgium. “I am a small
4.5G network two years ago, with 4x4 MIMO He has an instructive tale about frustrated operator, a small guy; thank god Luxembourg
and carrier aggregation from launch, so our global scale. Proximus has created a mobility is there,” Standaert jokes. “Smaller operators
4.5G users are recoding double the data usage platform that combines data from mobile should come together, and cross their engi-
of other customers.” networks and navigation systems to offer neering, and find ways to scale.”
Still, Turkcell’s business model is fundamen- cities a solution to congestion. The challenge
tally different to a lot of European operators; in is operators require a local presence to trade Revisiting collaboration
many cases, telecoms operators are hobbled by in a familiar manner with cities. “Scaling a MacLeod shakes his head and reflects on the
their networks. Taaghol explains the dilemma: platform is not easy; it comes with a lot of idea of inter-operator collaboration as a cure-all
“The largest taxi company in the world, Uber, hurdles,” he explains. for cheaper infrastructure and fiercer inno-
owns no taxis; the largest retail business in the vation. “This industry, or this layer of it, has
“
world, Alibaba, owns no stock; the largest hotel created a lot of what’s good about telecoms by
chain in the world, Airbnb, owns no property,” he cooperating. But that has hardly happened in
remarks. “This industry owns telecoms networks, Different the last 10 years,” he comments.
and says it is bound by them.” “We are quite focused on the closer nature
Zlatkov fires back, drawing on some of the
skills and cultures of competition with each other - and between
Szegin’s earlier comment about the market will challenge a our layer and other layers of the industry.
accentuating its differences. “Each has their You could argue we don’t take a big enough
advantages. As network operators, we can
company, and move strategic perspective. But that’s what happens
compete on a different level. We have our it forward when you have a fairly robust industry; it tends
subscribers, our networks, our billing relation- to get introspective.”
ships. We are known; we visit our customers’ Nordström rejoins; the work to standardise
premises. On top of all that, we are heavily At the same time, such scale is attainable, he GSM services a generation ago was collaborative
regulated. The trust is with us.” suggests, pointing to the example of Proximus and definitive for the market. “We achieved a
Standaert at Proximus agrees. “We have subsidiary BICS, wholesaling carriers’ services scale we never had before. This industry doesn’t
networks and local presence.” He cites also in international markets. “It started in Brus- collaborate like that anymore. Everyone talks
the market’s engineering prowess, as an sels, and is now in California and Asia, and is about it, but no one does it,” he says. “The GSMA
inherent technical advantage, embodied by number three in the world. Things that can be is designed for collaboration,” offers MacLeod.
the CTO-grade knowhow around the table. done; it’s just hard work.” “That’s more an event organisation than a collab-
“We take our expertise for granted. We can Collaboration affords greater opportunities, oration,” Nordström shoots back.
There is a ‘chicken-and-egg’ dynamic with age, Karonis agrees. “It opens a new chapter. and IoT, which you can’t do today already with
future networks and services, reckons Sezgin. In We can be over-the-top of the over-the-tops, NB-IoT and LoRa, will come later,” he says.
terms of industry collaboration, the first task is and squeeze them. There is lots of optimism. But the hype, mostly around enterprise ser-
to thrash out 5G use cases, he suggests. “Sharing We just have to revitalise the business model,” vices, is just as real, Karonis says. Society will
is important; it helps in ways. But 5G is not like he says. More than this, it presents a unique be digitised and transformed with high-capac-
previous technologies. We need the use cases to opportunity for network engineers to write the ity, low-latency 5G impacting everything from
justify the investment. We should work together future themselves, suggests Zlatkov. “The new industrial practices to city operations, to trans-
to create the use cases, and then we can invest.” sales forces will come out from our part of the port systems. “We start with the consumer
Vivacom in Bulgaria sees things rather differ- industry, because we understand the technolo- side, but the big opportunity with 5G is in the
ently. “If we just wait for 5G to help us, we will gy. It’s just one logical step for us.” enterprise space. That’s where the revolution
remain as pipes. We need to have examples - to is,” he says.
“
have a selling point,” says Zlatkov. It sounds like Across the table, MacLeod chimes in. “For
the same argument, to identify use cases first, people-to-people communications, 5G is
but he goes further. Network operators should If we just wait an evolution of what we already have. For
develop industrial propositions in collaboration machine-to-machine communications, it is
with third parties, which can be further iterated
for 5G, we will miss more revolutionary,” he says, acknowledging
in live settings with trusted customers, before the momentum also that the IoT space is already develop-
their wider commercialisation. Operators must ing around a number of LTE spin-offs and
call the tune with 5G, and dictate the pace of low-power equivalents.
innovation, he says; if they fail to orchestrate But are we not in danger of mixing hype He makes the point that 5G techniques like
around their own radio play, it will be rendered and reality, again? Karonis suggests the reality network slicing will allow operators to serve
as a baseline for others. Zlatkov says: “If we just is 5G technologies will provide the capacity to enterprise use cases in new ways. “We have a
wait for 5G, someone will come to us and say, serve the consumer market’s spiralling demand one-size-fits-all approach with the consumer
hey guys, let’s use your 5G network. We will miss for digital services. “5G provides a quick re- sector. It’s not the way to go with enterprises,
the momentum.” sponse to that,” he says. Standaert echoes this. which are more fragmented. We have to be
5G presents the telecoms industry a chance “The first use case for 5G will be about dealing more granular,” he says.
to reinvent itself for a transformative digital with demand. The sexy stuff around latency The advancing role of data analytics and
artificial intelligence, gaining momentum with That is something we’re just starting in this are to build networks efficiently, and find
the introduction of 5G networks, will enable industry. By having a strong brand, you can room to innovate over the top. The problem
almost defect-free networks, he observes, have your own content, and also attract the is letting go of old working habits, which have
which will make the case for mobile con- likes of Netflix and build the market around underpinned several generations of radio
nectivity in a myriad of critical enterprise [it] to be more relevant in areas you are not technology. “We want to live in the old world
functions. “Having machine learning so you used to being in.” and move to the new one at the same time,”
can know about incidents is a super important Models for sharing everything from trans- comments Berger.
science,” he adds. “By doing that you become mission technology to energy consumption are Conservatism is no good, when there is so
increasingly relevant in time critical functions, increasingly relevant. Karonis references EE’s much is to play for. No one at the table devi-
so there is a lot of space beyond consumer to deal with UK rival Three to share LTE infra- ates from the line about network sharing. “It
improve every industry.” structure, signed way back in 2013. “Finding is not logical to build two 5G networks in the
common ground between us is so important,” same country. Because this competition over
Preparing for take off he says. Bryn Jones, Three’s former Chief the best coverage is over. That game has gone,”
But contemporary digital communications Technology Officer [see page 34], comments: says Berger.
rely on complex heterogeneous networks, “In UK, we’re in a slightly fortunate position “If we were smart, we would spend less;
which are impossible to build and manage with the elements of site sharing we have. In we wouldn’t make the vendors richer.
alone, observes Karonis. The time for talking Europe and other countries, there will need to We would share our networks, reduce
is done. “It is increasingly evident you can’t be more sharing.” our investments, and free up money for
do it all by yourself. You need to leverage But for network building, the telecoms innovation. There’s lots we can do; we have
your strengths,” he says. industry has to get closer to governments and lots of talented people. But at the moment,
Karonis was director of IT at Athens In- landlords, as well. “5G requires more fibre and everything we have goes on infrastructure.”
ternational Airport in a previous life; mobile more cell sites. If governments want digital There’s the answer; what’s stopping you?
networks should be airports, he says - mar- economies, then it is no good for multiple “Nothing is stopping us. We are stopping
ket-stations for transport and trade, pioneer- operators to do the same thing, at prohibitive ourselves,” says Berger. “As an industry, we are
ing new digital exploration and enterprise. cost. It is not going to work,” he explains. not used to sharing. That approach has served
“This industry is 30 years behind,” he says. Indeed, incoming 5G technologies make us well until now. But the game has changed. If
“Airports are major hubs and market places. infrastructure sharing imperative if operators we shared more, we would gain more.”
22 Sponsored Interview: MYCOM OSI
MYCOM OSI: Ringing the changes

in OSS for autonomous networks
T
his year has been proving a busy one for
MYCOM OSI CEO Payam Taaghol
MYCOM OSI, as the global CSP community
wakes up to the instrumental role cloud-based
service quality assurance can play in realising
autonomic networks.
The more ambitious CSPs’ plans, the more
critical it is that they can support the QoE with
a light and eventually no operational touch –
tracking everything in one place, and leaning on the latest technology to
enable predictive analytics, automation and self-learning.
In this exclusive interview with Mobile Europe and European Commu-
nications, Payam Taaghol, MYCOM OSI’s CEO, sets out his vision and
describes the transformations his company has already made possible.
Mobile Europe and European Communications:

MYCOM OSI has made the headlines on numerous
occasions so far this year, suggesting that the
company is really riding a wave at the moment.
What’s going on?
Payam Taaghol: I think it’s exactly that – we have created something the
market is really craving now. We have a solution which is genuinely dis-
rupting the market - at a time when operators absolutely need to rethink
and behave differently in the way they manage and provide assurance
around their network and services.
As CSPs embrace digital transformation and connectivity becomes faster
and more ubiquitous, the emphasis is shifting to innovative on-demand,
real-time consumer and enterprise digital service opportunities. This
demands new ways of launching, monitoring, managing and ensuring the
quality and performance of services as well as the networks they run on –
aided wherever possible by smart technology. We play directly to that need
with an intelligent, integrated solution for letting operators visualise, auto-
mate and optimise digital experiences, as well as service and network qual-
ity. We cater for this, end-to-end, across hybrid physical and virtual telco
and IT networks, providing integrated, real-time assurance with closed-loop
automation and analytics driven by artificial intelligence/machine learning.
Our solution and approach are different to anything that has gone before.
We manage everything via a single, integrated platform in the cloud, and
provide our solution via a software-as-a-service (SaaS) subscription model, of what we’re doing and what we offer them. They have been the ones
in keeping with the way organisations are increasingly accessing software. nominating and supporting us, which is the best possible confirmation
It all adds up to a solution that’s highly scalable, can harness the latest that what we’re doing really matters.
technologies, including smart analytics and self-management techniques,
and which increases the quality of service (and SLA options) for customers - What awards have you won so far this year?
while simultaneously reducing complexity and cost for service providers. We’re proud to say there have been several. We won a significant TM
Forum award for operational transformation and agility, for champion-
This approach has now attracted a number of ing a solution built on a modern architecture that’s designed specifically
prestigious industry awards, hasn’t it? to be delivered via a cloud environment. It is genuinely transformational
Yes, and we’re particularly proud because most of this momentum is for our customers, because it enables the automation of very complex
being driven by our customers – CSPs that recognise the importance operational processes, taking CSPs closer to being able to realise dark,
Sponsored Interview: MYCOM OSI 23
zero-touch and even no-NOC networks. We’ve also been recognised as

a ‘Top 10 company to watch’ by Stratecast|Frost & Sullivan, and been
covered by Ovum’s On the Radar.
What are you offering that is so different

and disruptive?
Just as Salesforce disrupted sales management and CRM by moving
everything into the cloud and making it accessible through a differ-
ent purchasing model (SaaS), we offer an ‘assurance cloud’ for CSPs
harnessing the same delivery model. In doing this we have overturned
30+ years of traditional cumbersome approaches to OSS and reinvented
the service assurance market based on cloud benefits, technologies and
commercial models. Nobody else has done this with the real, large-scale
commercial project success that we have.
The fact that our solution is cloud native (i.e. has been designed to
be run in the cloud) means it is infrastructure agnostic. This means it domains. It is the brain that would leverage the orchestrators based on
can be run in any telco-optimised cloud environment, in addition to changing network conditions to dynamically control the user experience
traditional data centres and bare metal if necessary, offering the ability in real time.
to reduce deployment and operations efforts and cost associated with as- When it comes to harnessing AI and machine learning to optimise
surance systems by 75 percent versus traditional OSS approaches. It also service quality, we’ve been careful to ensure that all network and service
means massively reduced headaches in infrastructure acquisition and automation is fully programmable and can be open- or closed-loop. This
management by CSPs, which can be a major reason for project delays. means CSPs retain control and can embed their own expertise. Auto-
Our subscription business model, meanwhile, accelerates deployment mated processes are fully auditable too, which is very important.
and helps map assurance costs better to business cases - especially with
fail-fast CSP initiatives. It also provides much more flexibility for CSPs’ Tell us about some of the CSPs already using your
Capex and Opex needs and challenges. cloud-based solutions.
Importantly, we approach services assurance and quality holistically, One of our big success stories is with Three UK, which is deploying the
which is critical in supporting CSPs’ ambitions for new digital services world’s first telco cloud. It’s a hugely exciting project. The company carries
and customer experiences. Specifically, we have collapsed the traditional something like one third of the UK’s data traffic and has targets for doubling
silos of service assurance – i.e. performance management, fault man- business, increasing network speed eightfold, reducing IT spend, becoming
agement and service management – into a single integrated, real-time the UK’s number one brand and being first to market with digital services
system enhanced by automation and analytics. Because of all this, our provisioned and assured via the telco cloud. To get to this point, they needed
proposition is something much bigger and more transformational to a full network transformation, which is where we came in.
CSPs. As they begin to roll out increasingly creative services, from IPTV
“
to innovative new digital experiences for enterprises, including those
based on 5G and IoT, our complete, integrated ‘telco cloud’ solution can
look after every aspect of quality assurance – not just the performance The need for automation
of the underlying network, but also how that service is experienced by
every customer.
has never been greater in our
The need for automation has never been greater in our industry. We industry
offer a unique catalogue of highly specialised application- and out-
come-based automation solutions, also via subscription, that harness
our core quality assurance functionality to monitor, detect, analyse, The deployment for Three UK marks the first time an operator has
make recommendations and fully self-heal and self-optimise CSPs net- implemented a fully integrated, cloud-native core network. Our assur-
works end-to-end. The potential use cases we can support span a range ance cloud will manage Three UK’s entire IT and telco network - from
of enterprise and consumer, fixed and mobile, physical and virtual, RAN to core, both on the physical and virtualised parts of the network,
network domains and native and OTT digital services. What we have all in one place, viewable with a single line of sight. This has never been
is truly differentiated and covers all technologies, vendors and network done before.
24 Sponsored Interview: MYCOM OSI
We’ve also deployed our cloud-based assurance platform in one of the of our customer proof-of-concepts in this area are yielding some very
top five largest CSPs in the world – a company with more than 300 million interesting results.
subscribers. Beyond the sheer scale of operations and the two hundred
billion data records per hour we are crunching, an interesting point is As operators increasingly acknowledge the need
that the CSP has set out to automate 95 percent of its network and service for digital transformation in the way they organise
quality management with our platform and catalogue of solutions. and manage their networks, in what continued and
expanded ways will MYCOM OSI be able to help and
What does the future hold? As 5G beds in and OTT support them?
services using IoT become prevalent, where does In addition to providing a comprehensive, integrated approach to assur-
OSS need to head next to support all of this and give ance, not to mention an end-to-end digital service quality management
users the experience they expect? capability which supports network slicing, real-time service adjustments
We talk about the complete transformation of the service assurance and tailored SLAs, we also offer a step-by-step transformation process
function from a tactical solution to a ‘digital brain’ that helps make the to help CSPs migrate towards a more virtualised, digitally-innovative
network of the future autonomic – i.e. automated and driven by AI. This future. Recognising that it could take service providers up to 10 years
is about taking experience, performance and quality indicators across all to make the transition, we help them do this in a manageable and
networks, services, customers and devices, IoT or subscriber, and con- self-funding way through a series of tangible stages.
tinuously monitoring them in real time. It’s about detecting or predict- As the CSP gradually consolidates and simplifies its OSS and overall
ing degradations or anomalies; figuring out root causes or optimisation service assurance activities and associated IT systems, the payback
recommendations; and then orchestrating changes in the network and from reduced costs and complexity help to drive the next stage of the
services as needed. And all of this is powered by closed-loop automa- transformation. And at each stage, we ensure that the technology being
tion, and driven by self-learning. Once you can get to this point, then implemented is futureproof – so able to take CSPs forward to the next
service and quality assurance can provide additional strategic value stage when they are ready. It’s something we’ve been doing with a major
- taking the wealth of assurance data and intelligence and using this to service provider in the Middle East, where it has proved very successful
automatically govern networks. in moving the company’s ambitions forward.
As operators transform themselves into digital service providers,
“
we’re seeing a fundamental evolution in how they are architecting their
whole business. From Telefónica to China Mobile, every major CSP now
Operators need to rethink is looking to reorganise its existing assets (physical network, OSS/BSS,
CRM and more) and newer capabilities (cloud, SDN/NFV, big data/
and behave differently in the analytics, IoT platform, autonomic service assurance, and so on) and
way they manage and provide offer them in the form of a layered as-a-service vertical digital platform,
with differentiated services for various industry sectors. We are ideally
assurance positioned to help them with all of this.
Finally, do you have any thoughts about the way

All of these capabilities will soar up the agenda with 5G and IoT, where technology providers’ relationships with CSPs will
new use cases require even higher focus on QoE, QoS and guaranteeing change in future?
SLAs - for example driverless vehicles, remote robotic control and other Something that has emerged very strongly from this year’s industry
latency-critical or mission-critical applications. One of 5G’s killer benefits events has been the desire for a new relationship between CSPs and their
is to allow QoS to be differentiated through network slicing, so rather than suppliers. Instead of the traditional vendor-CSP relationship, which
having one network-wide QoS and the pressure for CSPs to expensively are driven by RFP procurement processes that go on for months or
over-provision for peak scenarios, they will have the option to differenti- even years, CSPs are increasingly looking for a more partnership-based
ate service levels by customer, application, use case, location, time and so scenario, where both parties co-invest and collaborate in an agile way
on. Each network slice, which is likely to be provisioned dynamically and to drive meaningful innovation. Surprisingly this is very welcomed by a
on demand, will need to be quality assured in its own right, while at the large community of progressive CSPs.
same time all of the hundreds or thousands of slices will need to be quality This might take the form of proof-of-concepts, or try-and-buy models
assured as a whole. Significantly, our solution is deployed on the 5G test to which both parties contribute with regular, inclusive reviews. And in
network at the University of Surrey’s 5G Innovation Centre and engaged fact this is something we’ve been doing for some time through our agile ap-
in several TM Forum Catalyst proof-of-concepts, to progress our develop- proach to solution development, where we seek customer input and conduct
ments on 5G assurance and network slicing for IoT applications. development reviews and demos every couple of weeks. This approach to
AI/machine learning is a particularly fascinating area, specifically software enhancement, coupled with our continuous integration and deliv-
how this will be further embedded within assurance to reduce con- ery platform, allows us to push innovations from our labs to the customer’s
figuration and correlation rule-creation, and provide predictive and production environment in a fast, low-cost and continuous manner. It’s
problem-solving capabilities that are too complex, too large in scale definitely the way forward in a dynamic, digital future.
or too dynamic in speed for humans to comprehend and act on. Some www.mycom-osi.com
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Essential information for senior decision-makers in the mobile communications industry
26 Virtualisation
Three tales of
network virtualisation
Telefónica, Orange and Velcom are at different stages on the journey to NFV.
They talk to Michelle Donegan about progress and pitfalls
A
fter several years pell says this is an ad-hoc approach. “All they’ve infrastructure management to support them
of hype, expecta- done is changed the box from a proprietary regardless of where they are deployed.
tions for network one to commodity hardware. And these virtual The Spanish operator recently expanded
functions virtu- appliances will all be silos.” the objectives to bring the infrastructure
alisation (NFV) The second phase introduces orchestration closer to users, via micro data centre and
have predictably and the ability to support multiple VNFs on on-premise edge deployments, as well as
crashed down to the same platform, in other words unsiloing achieve zero-touch orchestration.
reality. Service Phase One. “This is where the leading edge of At its recent Network Innovation Day, it said
providers and vendors are realising that it the market is now,” says Chappell. that the platform was deployed in four markets
will take longer than anticipated to transform The third phase is fully cloud native -“run- in 2017 and is being deployed to seven more in
physical network elements into virtual net- ning an equivalent cloud for the network just 2018. It comprises 21 data centres in 11 local
work functions (VNFs) running in the cloud. as Google or Amazon would run,” says Chap- domains and one global domain.
There’s more realism about when they will see pell. “We think this is going to underpin 5G The aim is to have 20 percent of mobile user
the promised benefits of cost savings, network networks. No operator is there yet, although plane traffic and 50 percent of control plane
flexibility and service agility. AT&T announced that its telco cloud for 5G traffic handled by VNFs, says Martínez. “We
“It was naïve to think that you could do will be cloud-native and containerised – a very are focusing on virtualising the IMS and EPC,
something as big as moving to a cloud-based advanced cloud indeed.” which are the most mature network compo-
network in two or three years,” says Caroline As the following mini case studies show, nents that exist in a virtualised environment.”
Chappell, Research Director at Analysys Ma- European operators’ experiences differ sharply. The immaturity of technology has been one
son. “It’s a decade-long journey and the thing of the biggest challenges. “VNF vendors say
“
that differentiates the leading companies is that they are going towards virtualisation, but
that they’re getting the fundamentals right.” they are actually vertically virtualised deploy-
Those fundamentals, she explains, are the
necessary changes to operator culture, gov-
The leading ments,” she says in an echo of Chappell’s Phase
One. “You have to work hard with the vendor...
ernance, organisation and processes. “There’s companies are to change their way of deploying VNFs.”
a huge amount that needs to be done and it’s
not just a question of sticking a function into a
getting the More specifically, Martínez said one of the
main problems Telefónica has encountered is
virtualised server. That’s the least of it.” fundamentals right with the OpenStack open source virtualisation
Operators are not all progressing at the same platform, which has “great shortcomings in terms
pace and with the same vision, she says. For of supervision, operation and tools to install your
every noteworthy operator like Telefónica and Telefónica leads Euro pack software”. These have to be improved for produc-
AT&T, there are those who expected success Telefónica stands out in Europe for network tion deployments, she says, but “they are at a very
quickly and easily then swiftly became disheart- virtualisation with its bold, comprehen- early stage”. This begs the unanswered question
ened when this didn’t happen, she notes. sive Unica platform strategy. The operator of why use it at all but for now it seems Open-
She describes three phases of network virtual- describes it as one of the first industrial telco Stack is telcos’ best option. Another challenge is
isation. The first is simply putting VNFs on com- clouds. Its original goal was to have a distrib- that implementing VNFs from different vendors
modity-off-the-shelf servers and running them uted infrastructure platform to start deploying increases complexity, but a virtualised environ-
standalone, which is where roughly 80 percent available network components, according ment for a single VNF is “under control.”
of NFV deployments are today. Telefonica calls to Aurelia Martínez, Network Virtualisation While Martínez acknowledged network
this “vertical virtualisation,” and did this initially Manager of Telefónica Global Systems and virtualisation is not easy, Telefónica’s com-
to race to market while also working on their Network. The platform needed to be able to mitment is unwavering. “Although our daily
holistic Unica platform strategy. However, Chap- host VNFs from different vendors, plus unified routine shows us how hard it is to overcome
Virtualisation 27
Abstract thinking:
virtualisation amounts to a
fresh approach to telecoms
all the problems we face, we would not change how Orange’s vIMS deployment went several Laque, Senior Director of Technology. “This
our strategy because our objective is clear: we years ago, according to Bellego. is an amazing task, and we managed the
go towards a telco cloud that allows us to Orange has now decided on architecture migration without any negative impact to
deploy and manage a virtualised end-to-end that comprises Red Hat’s NFV infrastructure, customers,” he says.
network,” she says. Juniper’s SDN controller, and hardware from Laque says the key was to everyone on
Her advice to other operators contemplating Dell and Hewlett Packard Enterprise. The first board with and trained on the new technolo-
virtualisation strategies is to go big. “Have a virtualised elements on the new platform will gy. “We didn’t have one team working on the
global vision of end-to-end virtualisation with- be the mobile packet core, with vEPC func- old system and another working on the new;
out making islands. This implies a bigger effort tions supplied by Cisco and Ericsson. everyone was on the journey to the new
but in the long run it is more effective.” Its biggest difficulties with network virtual- one,” he says. That said, he admits he should
Orange goes industrial isation have been dealing with hype, reviewing have started educating staff earlier. “Each
When Orange started network virtualis- all internal processes to support virtualisation, person had to learn the new system because
ation, it had two sets of goals. In enter- and the immaturity of Open Network Automa- our goal was to have nobody left in legacy.”
prise, the aim was to develop new services tion Platform (ONAP) for orchestration. He also says it was important to have close
provisioned on-demand. In the residential “For quite some time, there was a huge cooperation with suppliers. Velcom deployed
market, the goal was agility and, secondarily, gap between announcements from our sup- hardware from HPE, the virtualisation layer is
cost savings. These objectives remain the pliers and what was really available; so many based on OpenStack, and ZTE supplied all the
same today although the operator is now announcements were more polluting than VNFs. Laque says that a single VNF supplier is
more cautious about the economics. helping,” says Bellego. “When we started the what allowed the operator to deploy so rapidly.
“The savings will take a long, long time, real discussions, their readiness was not as The A1 Group has adopted this same ap-
much longer than we expected,” says Yves we expected. This is why we are only now proach, Laque explains, and each market will
Bellego, Director of Technical and Network deploying the industrial solution.” have one supplier for the virtualised functions.
Strategy at Orange, adding that he does not The next steps are to expand the deployment “With one supplier, you have easier
expect them to materialise before five years. of the NFV system in Spain to other markets integration and less headache with interop-
The first new NFV-based enterprise service and to launch ONAP. Orange has bet a lot on erability with others,” he says. “And the cost
that the operator has launched is Easy Go ONAP to be its target orchestrator. It has not factor is much lower from an operational
Network, a Network-as-a-Service offering. It’s deployed the first release, but it is working to perspective. You have one look and feel for
available in at least 75 countries and allows deploy the second or third. Bellego says “[it’s] the engineers,” he says. “At the same time, we
companies to provision services, such as secu- the OSS of the virtualised world”. decided that all interfaces must be based on
rity, for branch offices and scale resources up open standards, so we have the flexibility to
or down via self-service web portals. Velcom gets ready for 5G exchange VNFs with another supplier.” This
Orange is now entering what it calls the Velcom, A1 Group’s Belarusian subsidi- switch is not on his roadmap for now, with
“industrial” phase, or “full virtualisation” ary, started its virtualisation journey to 5G microservices and containers the next
as it defines its Infrastructure-as-a-Service reduce operational costs and prepare for stops on Velcom’s journey.
project being rolled out in Spain. Previous- 5G. The work started in 2016, and in just Three operators, three stories. As ever
ly, everything was provided by the same nine months all the elements of the core with virtualisation, the destination is easy.
supplier with no real orchestration. This was network were virtualised, says Christian It’s the journey that proves difficult.
28 AI
Intelligent future:
AI in telecoms
No telecoms announcement worth its salt goes without mentioning artificial intelligence
at present. But how are operators actually using it? Kate O’Flaherty reports
new technology come the inevitable technical

and cultural issues including a need for new
skills and attitudes. But operators are also par-
ticularly well placed to take advantage of the
large amounts of data that underpins AI and
machine learning. “Telecoms data is incredibly
rich; more so than other industries, because
mobile operators have a lot of information
about customers,” says Nick Patience, Research
Vice President, Software, 451 Research.
“The retention of existing customers is so
important,” adds Emma McGuigan, Group
Technology Officer, Communications, Media
and Technology, Accenture, adding this can
be achieved by using AI to create a seamless
experience.
Of all the operators, Telefónica’s AI strategy
is among the most advanced. It is using it
within internal business management as
well as across customer relations. Francisco
Montalvo, Director of Fourth Platform at
Telefónica, which handles its AI plans, says it
will change the way the operator interacts with
its customers.
Like all operators, Telefónica is undergo-
ing a digital transformation. The firm, which
describes itself as a platform company, wants
to ensure a uniform approach across all its
markets. As part of this, Telefónica is using AI
for smart marketing to ensure each customer
is offered the optimum product. This is in ad-
dition to harnessing it for optimisation across
A
several areas. “We are investing billions in
rtificial intelligence deployments as part of the move to virtual- network, IT and service related systems,” says
comes in many guises. In isation. Operators are also harnessing AI in Montalvo. “We need to make sure every euro
telecoms, mobile operators sales, marketing and customer service, where we put in gets the best possible return.”
are increasingly using the it helps reduce churn by targeting consumers According to Montalvo, AI also benefits net-
technology and its subset with the right offering at the right time. Players work planning. The firm operates thousands of
machine learning to im- in this area include AI enabled services such as sites, which need to be physically visited each
prove efficiency internally, as well as externally Telefónica’s Aura and Vodafone’s TOBi, which month. “If we can optimise the routes and
in customer-facing operations. are already starting to make an impact. identify the best sites to implement, it has a big
With the ability to make smarter decisions, Momentum is growing yet operators are fac- impact on our business.”
the technology is being applied to network ing challenges as they begin to apply it. With Improving customer solutions
AI 29
Orange is another operator applying AI across It is with this in mind that BICS is currently formation. If those teams can’t collaborate easily
multiple areas of the business. For example, performing trials focusing on gathering more around a unified analytics strategy, they will not
Nicolas Demassieux, Senior VP Orange data sources. The firm is already learning produce good results for the business.”
Labs Research, says the operator is using it about the challenges, says Gonzalez: “When we More broadly there is an increasing need for
to improve consumer solutions – such as its talk about AI or machine learning, people tend skilled individuals working with AI technol-
Djingo virtual assistant. The company is also to think it’s all automated and that you just set ogy, says Elena Fersman, Research Director,
harnessing AI to boost its own operations. it up, and it works. But you need lots of human Machine Intelligence and Automation, Erics-
According to Demassieux, AI can be trained intervention in the beginning. You need data son. Operators are tending to outsource for
to understand how the network operates, scientists and in-depth analysis and knowledge skills they don’t have, while some are using in-
improving security and saving energy. He from the business.” house data scientists. Telefónica employs data
explains: “We can use data to learn how the Of course, harnessing AI is particular- scientists in each country and uses external
system behaves and monitor it, so it works ly complex for BICS as a wholesale player. companies for data engineering, says Montal-
better. We are using this already in research “There is a main difference between retail and vo. Meanwhile, according to Demassieux, Or-
and sometimes in production.” wholesale: retailers know their customers and ange uses in-house expertise, and also works
Orange is also examining “a more powerful it’s easy to spot something not ‘normal’ in be- with partners including traditional vendors
vision of cognitive metrics”, says Demassieux. haviour. It is more difficult in wholesale when and start-ups to solve specific problems.
“For example, when building the 5G network, it comes to fraud,” Gonzalez says. Today, AI is mainly used to automate
we use AI to predict the load per kilometre. If processes, says Fersman. She says that in
“
we look at how consumers are using video, it is five years, the technology will be “even more
possible to configure the load in real time on efficient”. Currently, the sophistication of
the network and prevent outages.” solutions varies. However, driven by machine
Customer facing operations are starting to
In five years learning, products are improving all the time,
benefit too. Doron Youngerwood, Product there will be no 451’s Patience says: “The beauty of machine
Marketing Manager, Big Data and Artificial learning is, it is driven by data: it’s not fixed
Intelligence, Amdocs, cites the example of
decision that will code,” he says. “As the data and comments get
Vodafone UK, which uses AI to improve its not be supported richer and more varied, it learns, so in theory
customer service. Previously, it was struggling it should get better and better.”
with a low net promoter score. The operator
by AI According to Patience, today’s machine learn-
addressed this through its TOBi chatbot. ing is very text based, but in the future, it will be
“Using AI, they can guide the interaction, able to analyse images. “For example, if you had
ensuring the customer is dealt with in the right AI challenges a damaged phone, you could take a picture and
way,” Youngerwood says. Operators are aware there’s still a lot of learn- image recognition would be able to see if it needs
And behind the scenes, vendors are targeting to be done. Demassieux says: “Today, we repairing, or if any other parts are broken.”
ing operators with a number of products based have people manually optimising the network. Further still, AI will help to offer completely
on cognitive technology. Fernando Núñez If we replace this with automated methods new operator business models, experts predict.
Mendoza is CEO of fonYou, which builds bots using AI, we need to qualify the performance Patience says the technology can be part of
to help operators sell products through om- of the ‘improvement’. He explains: “You need the ecosystem enabling smart cities, offering
nichannel methods. South American operator to understand that even if AI is statistically multiple opportunities for operators. “They
Claro uses fonYou’s AI to offer a personalised performing better, the mistakes it makes will could sell packages to governments. For ex-
service to its 24 million subscribers. be different, as it does not ‘think’ like us. So, ample, if people are going to an event, location
When someone runs out of credit, machine you need to work out what the errors might be data from their phones might show what the
learning algorithms conduct real-time analysis and put processes in place to account for this.” traffic will be like.” Mobile customer data could
of the subscriber’s purchase and payment Maximising data can be a challenge, tech- also be used to inform town planning, such
history and offer a bespoke top-up if they are nically and culturally within the business, says as where to build an extra train line or add
low risk. Mendoza says AI requires a cultural Montalvo. “How do we make use of data in parking spaces.
change among operators but he also concedes decisions? People have been making decisions As use cases continue to expand, the role of
that firms need to cut through the “hype based on instinct for years and now a machine AI will increase across operators’ businesses.
around AI and analytics”. is telling them that their chosen option is not “In five years, there will be no decision taken by
Yet the technology has the potential to also the best one.” Telefónica that will not be supported by AI,” says
be applied more broadly across the telecoms Silos between teams can also be an issue, Montalvo. It will be pervasive and cut through
industry. For example, it is proving useful according to David Wyatt, VP EMEA at data all areas of operators’ businesses, says Accenture’s
in wholesale carrier fraud prevention. Katia analytics firm Databricks. “To implement McGuigan. “We will think more about how ma-
Gonzalez, Head of Fraud Operations at BICS, AI, multiple teams need to be involved. Data chine learning can be part of how the estate runs.
says AI is able to perform tasks too complex engineers cover the IT infrastructure, while There will be a shift from ticking a box on AI to it
for humans to do in a traditional way. data scientists create and iterate around the in- being ingrained in all processes.”
30 Full Spectrum
News spotlight
Jones leaves Three UK

CTO role, with tech
duties to be split
Three UK CTO Bryn
Jones has left the operator,
Nokia outlines €3 per 5G handset patent rates with his tech duties split
Nokia is aiming to net €3 per 5G New Radio smartphone to reflect the ongoing
after revealing its standard patent licensing rates softwarisation of telecoms
BT, Facebook open Swisscom attacks

door to start-ups government for
in latest innovation delaying its nationwide
contest 5G rollout plans
BT and Facebook are Swisscom is blaming the
aiming to unlock fresh country’s government
connectivity solutions for delaying its national
for rural areas and deployment of 5G because
self-healing networks of a restrictive and costly
after launching its latest investment environment
start-up competition
O2 flicks switch on Wi-Fi

rival in LiFi trial
O2 has used beams of light
to transmit data through
light bulbs in a trial of LiFi, a
technology that could prove a
rival to Wi-Fi
Com Hem brings 1.2GBps speeds to Sweden
Swedish triple play provider Com Hem has rolled out
1.2GBps fibre to 600,000 households across the country
Samsung to spend €140bn to back AI, 5G, Proximus unleashes TITAN to

car and chipset strategy strengthen network capacity
Samsung is pledging €19.25 billion to fund Proximus is aiming to increase the capacity
research into 5G, AI, autonomous driving and of its network tenfold after launching a three
semiconductors, as part of a €140 billion warchest year transport network modernisation project
Ericsson boosts
automation with
CENX buy
Ericsson has
strengthened its
automation services
with the acquisition
of CENX, which it Deutsche Telekom puts NB-IoT on the runway at
said would grow Dusseldorf airport
its virtualisation Deutsche Telekom is deploying NB-IoT to monitor infrastructure
solutions quality in one of Germany’s busiest airports
Full Spectrum 31
EIB swells Nokia’s coffers by

€500m to fund its 5G research
The European Investment Bank has lent and other services requiring low latency and
Nokia €500 million to help the Finnish ubiquitous coverage.
vendor invest further in the research and Nokia CFO Kristian Pullola said: “We are
development of 5G technology. pleased to land this financing commitment
Nokia has been one of many telcos beaver- from the EIB, who shares our view of the rev-
ing away at a flurry of 5G trials and demon- olutionary nature of 5G - and the realisation
strations ahead of the technology’s commer- that this revolution is already underway.
cial launch. “This financing bolsters our 5G research efforts
In a statement, Nokia toed the line of fellow and continues the broader momentum we have
telcos in repeating how 5G would power the already seen this year in terms of customer wins
likes of augmented and virtual reality, driv- and development firsts, supporting our relentless
erless cars, healthcare, industrial automation drive to be a true leader in 5G - end-to-end.”
Vodafone lends digital transformation

know-how to MTS
Vodafone is to help MTS with its digital time and resources when building networks
transformation strategy after the Russian and launching new products, ultimately
operator extended its strategic partnership strengthening MTS’ position in our markets.
with the UK telco. “At the current technological stage, this new
Both operators have been working together step in our cooperation opens for MTS a way
for 10 years, cooperating in procurement, tech- to accelerate our digital transformation as well
nology and marketing. Under the new agree- as to improve our business efficiency both
ment, which extends the partnership until 2020, quantitatively and qualitatively through access
Vodafone will also provide examples of how to to Vodafone’s expertise and know-how.”
digitally transformation internal technology, Since 2008, Vodafone has provided MTS
business and organisational processes. with access to its product portfolio and
Alexander Gorbunov, Vice President, marketing research, as well as given advice
Strategy and Development, MTS, said: “Our on how to best extend its network across
strategic partnership with Vodafone has... Russia. It also helps MTS with purchasing
helped us to save a considerable amount of software and IT equipment.
Telenor Norway dubbed world’s fastest network in latest speed tests

Telenor Norway has been deemed the world’s Ookla said Telenor Norway’s success strength of the operator was its aggression
fastest mobile network, with consumers able hinged upon a multi-carrier LTE de- in pushing consumers to modern handsets
to download with speeds of 72.05MBps. ployment strategy by using the 800MHz, equipped with the latest antennas, RF front-
Research from testing agency Ookla found 1800MHz and 2.6GHz layer that gives it end and antennas.
the top three operators for downloads were Eu- the balance of coverage and capacity. The
ropean. Telenor was followed by T-Mobile Neth- operator has also rolled out Gigabit LTE,
erlands, with speeds of 70.05MBps and Nova in 256QAM and 4x4 MIMO to selected sites to
Iceland, which hit an average of 67.83MBps. drive network efficiencies.
Next year, Telenor Norway, which has an LTE
For the
population coverage of 99.4 percent, is aiming LATEST NEWS &
to refarm its 3G holdings in the 900MHz and
2.1GHz bands to strengthen its LTE position. A FEATURES, go to
chunk of 2G will be open until 2025 and power www.mobileeurope.co.uk
M2M and legacy voice services.
Ookla’s Milan Milanović said another
32 Full Spectrum
The Wireless World

The latest news and innovation from around the globe
PUERTO RICO
AT&T
AT&T has deployed LTE-connected drones
carrying temperature sensitive medical
supplies in the latest trial of IoT technology.
The operator teamed up with UK
packaging company Softbox Systems on
the trial, which tracked the location and
temperature of the supplies in real-time
using app and web dashboards.
Sensors were also able to track
whether the box had been tampered with MEXICO
by using light exposure to determine
whether it had been opened. Megacable
Work is underway on the Topolobambo –
La Paz project, Megacable’s deployment
of a submarine cable to boost
connectivity and latency in Mexico’s
second largest tourist destination.
The operator is working with Huawei
on the project, which will connect the
two sites via a 250 kilometre undersea
cable across the Gulf of California.
La Paz is one of Mexico’s biggest
tourist draws and Megacable is keen to
improve the high failure rates caused by
aerial optical hardware.
LESOTHO
Vodacom
Vodacom has launched what it claims to
be the first commercial 5G fixed-wireless
service in Africa.
It is using spectrum in the 3.5GHz to offer
connectivity to two enterprise customers. BRAZIL
While it hopes to extend its offer to
surrounding South Africa, Vodacom said it Copel Telecom
cannot launch it commercially until it gets Copel Telecom has launched 1GBps
access to 3.5GHz in that market. broadband in the city of Curitiba in
the south of the country.
The operator has deployed 33,000
kilometres of fibre across the wider
state of Parana.
Full Spectrum 33
INDIA
Idea Cellular
Idea Cellular will start running voice and data services PHILIPPINES
on a common cloud platform after deploying new core
network technology from Nokia. Globe Telecom
The Finnish vendor said the technology was the latest
Globe Telecom is adding an additional $100 million
step in the Indian operator’s wider digital transformation
to its capex to meet booming demands for data.
to meet booming demand for mobile solutions.
3G and LTE traffic leaped 140 percent during the
It added its cloud native portfolio would help Idea
first six months of 2018.
Cellular enhance automation, scale out faster and
The operator said the bulk of the spend, which
accelerate the time to market of new products.
is on top of its $850 million fund for 2018, will be
used for 4G and paving the way for 5G.
MYANMAR
Ericsson
Ericsson has developed an energy efficient base
station delivering 2G, 3G and LTE coverage while
using less than one kilowatt of power.
Its Psi Solution is aimed at connecting rural
areas. Instead of having several antennas cover
a single area, one radio unit connects three
antennas and delivers coverage.
The vendor said rural areas like the Myanmarese
countryside face particularly challenging issues
regarding power consumption. Operators usually
have to rely on unreliable diesel generators to
power more traditional network sites. AUSTRALIA
Telstra
Telstra has switched on Australia’s first
5G regional community after completing
an infrastructure project.
Toowoomba in Queensland will become
one of the first areas globally to access
5G services, CEO Andrew Penn said.
The operator is aiming to deploy
more than 200 5G capable sites across
Australia by the end of this year.
34 Full Spectrum
Swisscom’s Heinz Herren

calls time on CTO career
Swisscom’s CTO is stepping down from his role after 17 years at the company.
Heinz Herren will reduce his working hours to 60 percent from February and focus
on strategic projects at the operator. He will be replaced by software engineering
company ERNI’s CEO Christoph Aeschlimann.
SmartCitiesWorld.net
is a site focussed on
creating a central pool
of smart infrastructure
intelligence
This online community enables
you to keep abreast of the latest
developments and trends in smart cities
The aim is to help foster the

partnerships and dialogue between
the key vertical sectors of
Connectivity, Transport, Energy, Data,
Buildings and Governance
www.smartcitiesworld.net

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Q3

Group CTO of Regional CTO CTO

We know the transition to a

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ture that other companies can innovate and

Edge computing: İzmir, on a processed data services provider - to compete,

CTO of the Year Roundtable:

MYCOM OSI: Ringing the changes

Mobile Europe and European Communications:

zero-touch and even no-NOC networks. We’ve also been recognised as

What are you offering that is so different

Finally, do you have any thoughts about the way

new technology come the inevitable technical

Jones leaves Three UK

BT, Facebook open Swisscom attacks

O2 flicks switch on Wi-Fi

Samsung to spend €140bn to back AI, 5G, Proximus unleashes TITAN to

EIB swells Nokia’s coffers by

Vodafone lends digital transformation

Telenor Norway dubbed world’s fastest network in latest speed tests

The Wireless World

Swisscom’s Heinz Herren

The aim is to help foster the

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