Fernando Castro-Cristin, HPE (00:20):
The operators are seeing, at the first year already, operational benefits. That's the most important criteria - number one, when you choose open ran. Being flexible in the operations, being more agile and being able to implement the same level of output for the customers, that's super important. But rationalize the operational costs that you have, like predictive maintenance is more easy like supply chain in terms of RMA, all those elements that makes your operations more efficient, therefore, better TCO.

Sushil Rawat, TELUS (01:01):
So TCO benefit is a multi-year realization. You do see TCO savings on very first day when you do a overall assessment of cost of hardware, cloud and radios and software. On the very first day there is some cost saving in terms of cost structure coming in from different suppliers. But overall, TCO saving is a multi-year project where you get more and more efficiencies with introduction of AI and automation and making software year over year making software more efficient. You're able to utilize your hardware better. You're able to deploy your software better. So TCO is a multi-year saving process. It's not that you will realize all the saving on day one, but you will see a significant amount of saving. At least we have that experience that we are seeing some cost saving on very first day of O-RAN adoption. And then there's a multi-year plan where we will be more efficient with our expenditure on network deployment and operation.

Stephen Wiktorski, Samsung (02:14):
This is already on the record that they're already TCO positive. They're moving from single band to tri-band radios, from proprietary hardware to COTs servers, and I think that's only going to get better over time. With the emergence of intelligent automation, with the integration of the RIC, with integration of AI into the network and with the evolution of CPUs and servers, I think we're going to see continued positive TCO for all the operators who take the path of v-RAN.

Robert Curran, Appledore Research (02:44):
I think we're already seeing it, but we're really just seeing the beginning to realize TCO benefits from open ran, especially relative to traditional ran, you have to run open ran at scale. For the most part, we're just in the early stages of large scale, brownfield roll out of open ran. A combination of open RAN and Cloudified RAN is extremely powerful both commercially and technically. It is a challenge because it means change and change is hard, but the companies who have embraced that change wholeheartedly are starting to see real benefits in terms of proving network quality and overall efficiency. Rather than waiting for major vendors to release new features, operators are already looking at what they can do with things like additional RAN data, greater granularity, new generations of silicon and cloud platforms and intelligent automation. I think years two and three of open ran rollouts are where things get really interesting. I'd say that nobody who's actively rolling out open ran today is looking in the rear view mirror.