Tony Poulos, TelecomTV (00:16):
Tony Poulos here at DSP Leaders World Forum in Windsor. Our next version of the extra shot includes three well-known celebrities of the industry. Neil McRae, who is a Chief Network strategist at Juniper Networks. Welcome Neil. Next name Andrew Collinson, who's the founder and principal of Connective Insight. Andrew, good to catch up at last and least, but not last. Also is Anita Döhler, who is the CEO of the NGMN Alliance. We've had a fabulous session talking about the Green network driving network, efficiencies from network core to edge. Two of you are on that panel, but I want to ask you first, Neil Susanna, who was also on there said, it's really as simple as adding new software to increase efficiencies on the network. Isn't that true?

Neil McRae, Juniper Networks (01:07):
I think that's a starting place for sure. We see many service providers running older code because it works. They don't feel they need to update it. But over the last few years, there's a lot of new protocols, a lot of new capabilities, a lot of new things that enable massive power savings even on legacy devices. So it's an easy way to start the journey because you're not having to migrate customers. You're not having to do any heavy lifting, do some software testing, partner with your vendor. We do this with many of our customers and we roll out code that saves money literally from the minute the router boots. So yes, it can be as simple, but it's not. It has to be taken seriously. There's testing that needs to be done. You don't want to upset customers. But yes, that is a place to start.

Tony Poulos, TelecomTV (01:59):
Well, interesting point you raised, Neil. Andrew, is cost reduction really the main reason for us to look at green networks?

Andrew Collinson, Connective Insight (02:07):
Well, no, it's not the only reason, but I think it's a very tangible and I think powerful reason because you can talk a lot about things like sustainability and environmental, and we all want that, but you can't measure it. You can measure power, you can measure the cost of power, and I think most people have become suddenly experts in the cost of power in the last 18 months if you live in Europe, certainly Anita, wouldn't you say, Neil? We've all done it, and Susanna on the panel said she put a new application in the kitchen and she noticed the change in energy. I think everybody feels that. So no, I don't think it's the main reason, but I think it's the most measurable and tangible reason for it. In answer to your question, what I'd like to have heard a bit more about, and maybe Neil and Anita can tell me is what Lee said was from Vodafone said that because it become flat in usage but not in costs, do we know what difference has been made to networks over the last say 18 months in power consumption? Does anyone know? I mean, I don't, I've not followed it

Tony Poulos, TelecomTV (03:12):
Rather difficult to measure, isn't it?

Anita Döhler, NGMN (03:14):
No, I think it's hard to measure and that's also why in NGN we are working on metering requirements. So that's the precondition of understanding the energy consumption. But back to the question, whether it's just about cost savings, I think it's a mixture, of course, cost savings, it's clear. I mean, I liked a lot of statement from Gabriela this morning from bt. It's either increasing revenues or reducing costs. So one form or another is necessary, but we also don't have an alternative as the industry if we want to go ahead. So we have to find new ways with regards to energy management, with regards to energy efficiency means. And last but not least, how do we measure it? How do we report it in a standardized way? And it's not an easy task, but feeler is not an option.

Andrew Collinson, Connective Insight (04:08):
I thought something else actually though on this, and Neil, I dunno if you know about this. You mentioned Off-tober, the initiative that BT used to run to turn staff off, and I was thinking about this. Is it something that people are incentivized to do widely in the industry? Anita, you might know about are the incentivized to reduce energy? I reduce cost. Is it an ongoing thing or a one-off thing?

Neil McRae, Juniper Networks (04:30):
So look, in that period, we saw huge energy risings and look, businesses are simple. If you have a good year, everyone gets a bonus, right? And there's no easier way to reduce cost than turning off power or turning off systems at use power. So absolutely there's an incentive there. I think the incentive

Andrew Collinson, Connective Insight (04:51):
For this is an incentive for the company, but is there an incentive for the people in the company to do it? Are you getting

Neil McRae, Juniper Networks (04:55):
Yeah, absolutely. They'll get absolutely. So in my old shop, bt, I mean actually I can't remember the exact number, but I'm pretty sure every year I was there we took two or 3% out of our total usage of electricity and that just hit the bottom line, which meant there was more money for pay rises and bonuses. So absolutely, if you're able to save money, then that translates into objective. In my personal objectives as a director there, energy usage and energy consumption and green was absolutely a personal objective that I was measured on.

Tony Poulos, TelecomTV (05:31):
But getting back to Suzana's example, it's easier in the kitchen to determine that, but how easy is it to monetize cost savings for say, business cases? You've got to help your customers develop business cases.

Neil McRae, Juniper Networks (05:43):
Absolutely, and I think here in Europe it got a lot easier when the price went up. No question about it. But this is one of the challenges that we faced in telco, and I've worked for a lot of telcos, I worked for a lot of organizations. We measure payback over two or three years and that makes a case really difficult. But BT is an example or NTT, they've been around for a hundred plus years. So if you measure it over a sensible number, then it starts to make sense. Like everyone's building 5G and fiber. We don't measure that over a two year payback that's over a 10 year payback or a 20 year payback. Yeah, we've got to make sure the cash flow's there. But I think organizations, at least I see organizations in telcos taking a much longer view on the payback because every year it's every year, every day, every minute you're paying something to keep equipment on.

Neil McRae, Juniper Networks (06:39):
The one thing I will say though is, and this came out interestingly earlier, we want to turn all the old stuff off. That's great if we've migrated customers. And quite often I used to always remind my team, it's the old stuff where we might be making the most margin or the most money. So it's not just quickly turn off and move customers. We've got to do it in a sensible way. That's right. For the customer, right, for the organization, and ultimately drives the customer to actually want to spend more money as we're doing that migration and turning stuff off. But

Tony Poulos, TelecomTV (07:08):
Now the network upgrade is going to vendors like Juniper saying we want the green version, we want the lower consumption version. Are they forcing that issue?

Neil McRae, Juniper Networks (07:18):
Yes.

Tony Poulos, TelecomTV (07:18):
Don't you answer.

Neil McRae, Juniper Networks (07:19):
They are.

Tony Poulos, TelecomTV (07:20):
Andrew?

Andrew Collinson, Connective Insight (07:22):
Actually very interesting thing. I worked with a group of the Bridge Alliance in Asia. Yes. And we did some work with them, this when I was working at STL Partners

Andrew Collinson, Connective Insight (07:32):
And we did some work with their procurement teams. So this is from operators across Europe, and we did this presentation to them saying, look, one of the best things you can do for sustainability, we believe in that kind of stuff, is to ensure it's mandated in your procurement practices. And I did so with a slight fear because you're talking to procurement and you're I'm going to get killed for this. And they were completely up for it and I was really touched. I thought that was one of the most moving things I've seen in the industry. So I believe that industry wants this. It's a science-based industry. People in IT are quite often driven by doing good things. Would you know what saying? Well,

Tony Poulos, TelecomTV (08:14):
The NGMN Alliance is being asked to do this as well,

Andrew Collinson, Connective Insight (08:16):
Well to

Tony Poulos, TelecomTV (08:16):
to do that.

Anita Döhler, NGMN (08:17):
Yes, of course. And it's not only about energy efficiencies in general, the reduction of the carbon footprint of the industry. And I have to put in a disclaimer because as an industry organization, of course we are not directly influencing any procurement teams, but of course we are providing guidance so that this guidance can be an even type of handbooks can be used by procurement teams to use on a voluntary basis. Of course.

Tony Poulos, TelecomTV (08:47):
So when the network operators are concerned about network efficiency, who are they going to for help? They can't come and ask you for advice obviously, because you're not an advisory buddy. But what happens, Andrew?

Andrew Collinson, Connective Insight (08:58):
Well, I could give a plug to my old colleagues at s DL Partners, they've got a sustainability practice, so they help people. But I think some of the other consultancies, other consultancies may exist that do the same things. I dunno. Neil, how did you go about it? I guess it's a problem. So

Neil McRae, Juniper Networks (09:12):
Absolutely. Actually at Juniper, we partner SDL to create a set of cases for service providers to map out their journey to reduce power. And I've perhaps made this point badly, but this is the point. This can't be an initiative. It's going to be something that's baked into your fabric every day of every minute. As well as thinking about resiliency, which is telcos were great at, we're thinking about energy usage, we're thinking about feature functionality. We're thinking about making money and saving money. And too often that isn't built into the ethos. So understanding the challenges that our customers face and then building some simple things into the network. So for example, one of the highest energy users in our router, believe it or not, is a cooling fan. Okay. So where does that take you then? Okay, maybe I make a thinner chassis so I can expel heat more. Maybe I figure out how to turn more stuff off so I can not only save power on the stuff I've turned off, but I can save power on the actual fan. And these are all things that we've built into our latest devices.

Tony Poulos, TelecomTV (10:22):
They winding me up for our end of time. But you want to say something very, very quickly?

Anita Döhler, NGMN (10:25):
Exactly. I mean, we do best practice sharing in the projects and of course that's also helping the operators each other together with vendors and academia. And don't forget that many operators already have a very good sustainability and energy efficiency experts. So

Tony Poulos, TelecomTV (10:41):
Thank you Anita and Andrew and Neil. Of course, that's it for this version of Extra Shot. But keep viewing, we've got more coming later today and tomorrow we have lots of sessions. And don't forget, have your say. We do want you to take part in our polls. You can do it each day. And of course, guy and Ray will review the results for us as well. So thank you for joining with us. See you for the next extra shot.