Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (00:02):
So we're in London for the Ericsson OSS/BSS Summit 2025. I'm here with Mats Karlsson, he's head of Business and Operations Support Systems at Ericsson. Mats, great to see you today. Thanks very much for doing this. How are you finding this year's summit? Any key takeaways at all?

Mats Karlsson, Ericsson (00:22):
I think it's a 26-year-old history of this summit, and I think it kind of started with a user group, a lot of technical discussions, et cetera, and people voting for features in the different operators. I think if you look now, it's very much an industry event. You will see a lot of, history was a lot of Ericsson presentations. Now you see its operators presenting to other operators. So I mean, the whole event has evolved and obviously I think for this year, I think we start to see the same theme as maybe last year about how do we monetize the new revenue opportunities coming from 5G standalone and differentiated connectivity. But I think this year you've also seen a lot of emphasis on the autonomous network. How do we actually operate the networks for the future.

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (01:14):
Now you mentioned the monetization there, business opportunities and there does appear to be a great business opportunity for network operators around dynamic network slicing, but there still seem to be some fundamental challenges there in terms of bringing this service to market at scale. We've seen a really good catalyst demo here with BT, Deutsche Telecom and Telia. What are the highlights of that demonstration? What does it tell the market?

Mats Karlsson, Ericsson (01:44):
I mean, we are in a situation now where I believe technology is ahead of business. I think we can show and we can drive a lot of new services. I think one of the things that we see is obviously what I'm pushing a lot of the times is that I think we need to be much more quicker. We need to be much more agile and flexible and we need to do this as a more efficiently operated network in terms of running these services. And I think now I think what we show in the demo was very much, I think a network as a service type of approach by providing secure connectivity on airports, but really then adding some of the capabilities also from how do we assure this type of services or can I provide an SLA? And how can I also interact with the system in a conversational way? And I think what we did here was really to show something that is based on technology that exists today. So I think right now, I think the challenge is obviously how do we start to seeing this technology being also translated into new revenue streams and new services for the operators. And I think this is obviously where I think the focus is now. It's very much I think also on the business side now,

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (02:59):
And you've spoken about proving the industrialization potential of autonomous networks. Can you tell us more about that topic?

Mats Karlsson, Ericsson (03:08):
I think what we are seeing is that, I mean, what we're having now is a foundational layer of a programmable network based on 5G standalone, which makes it possible to actually steer quality of service, have services that is based on the service level agreements, SLA-based services. But then we see these two, I would say paradigms that is happening. One is around capability to create and define new differentiated connectivity service. I mean exposed directly or through APIs, but I think also with autonomous network. So what we're also saying is that if you're going to launch and deploy these type of services in the network, you will actually need the automation that provides, that comes from the autonomous network actually to run and operate these services. So we see that, I mean you can't only invest in the services, you also need to invest in having a modernized network at the same time. So when we are talking about the industrialized autonomous network, it's both to provide the capabilities of delivering the new services, but also making sure that you can deliver them in very efficient ways.

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (04:14):
Well, I mean it's a fascinating topic and like you said, lots of network operators here talking about what they're doing and how they're moving themselves forward into these next generation networks. So fascinating stuff at this summit. Mats, thanks very much for joining us today. Great to hear your thoughts.

Mats Karlsson, Ericsson (04:31):
Thank you.