Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (00:05):
So we are at Fyuz 24 in Dublin. I'm here with Caroline Chan, she's the VP and GM of the 5G Infrastructure Division network platform group at Intel and probably has the longest job title here. Fyuz US here and also with Eugina Jordan, CMO at TIP. Probably the shortest job title at Fyuz this year.

Eugina Jordan, TIP (00:23):
But also Caroline is...

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (00:26):
The new president of TIP. So an even longer bigger business card needed for you these days, Caroline. So thanks very much both of you for joining us. So telecom tv, we've doing a lot of video here on the show floor. Consequently, I don't really know what's been going on in the rest of the event. So what's the mood here at Fyuz? What are the big takeaways? Caroline, let's start with you.

Caroline Chan, TIP & Intel (00:51):
The big takeaway for me is I could not enter any meeting room conversation without the two initial ai. AI is a rage. We could see AI is now penetrating a lot of other verticals, industries, including telco. We are talking a lot about telco AI here. A few we're talking about how do we bring monetization acceleration into the telco network. 5G included wifi and also I think that is my biggest excitement that I sense from the community here.

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (01:27):
Okay, and Eugina Tip is already sort of on top of AI, isn't it, with what it's doing?

Eugina Jordan, TIP (01:35):
Absolutely. You will see AI developments in all of our project groups. If you look at the sessions of your attendance sessions, there's AI in Transport, the AI in Durran, and we also have a very special telco AI group. It's the newest group, it's our baby, but it's very active. Intel is a co-chair and thank you very much. And N VJ is a co-chair and Deutsche Tele commodity. And as we were preparing for this interview, TIP provides the platform, the community. Where else can you see in VJ

Caroline Chan, TIP & Intel (02:12):
And Intel together driving a community adoption, right? We need to create this marketplace for everybody to benefit from that we can figure out the market, share what we bring to the table. But it's very important. I think the message is that we want community. Join us, your M MNOs, your operators, your software developers, AI application developers. Please join us. The only thing we can make this a successful marketplace for everybody to benefit from.

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (02:43):
Okay, so I mean TIP has been around for a few years already, but the industry has changed massively during that time. You've now got a new chair, you have a president, Caroline's new president as we mentioned. But does TIP have a new mission or has the mission evolved? How would you describe TIP right now, Gina?

Eugina Jordan, TIP (03:07):
So the mission has not changed all this years TIP was formed in 2017 and you were our longest serving member. Serving member

Caroline Chan, TIP & Intel (03:19):
Member. I remember history, yes.

Eugina Jordan, TIP (03:22):
Yeah. So it was formed to make sure that new innovative solutions they get to market. And the challenge was for especially new companies, startups or even existing companies is how they get to operators. Because there was a disconnect. No one knew what operators wanted. So it became that platform community where we get requirements, specifications from mobile operators, then vendors work on the roadmap that actually meets the needs. And then we test and validate. This year we validated over 40 solutions just at Fyuz alone when on three new badges. And those badges, they helped many companies with path to market. One of our members announced today that MTN who is on the board as well and also very active member in the OPT group, they just got deployment contract from that customer.

Caroline Chan, TIP & Intel (04:28):
Congratulations. IP Fusion for

Eugina Jordan, TIP (04:30):
That. Yes, yes. And that's mission has not changed. It's to bring everyone together, drive that innovation forward so we can provide connectivity. Because our industry, it's all about connectivity.

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (04:45):
And Caroline, I mean it is not just about ideas and people wanting to do things and wanting to work together. There's actually an outcome from the work here, isn't

Caroline Chan, TIP & Intel (04:53):
It? Correct. I mean even back in when we first started 2017, we always want to be known as a doers. We don't develop specs, but we the one developing blueprints and test plans and actually test and validate. We wanted to accelerate the path to the market to drive a commercial viable solutions. As a doer community, we want to get together, we wanted to create this outcome today we were actually on talking about the multi-vendor Open ran with at t with Vodafone, MDOs and myself on the panel. And I brought up to people that this multi-vendor today is happening. It's not just the DUCU and R ru. Think about you introducing Wind River, red Hat de HPE and all the applications, the rig, the S apps, our apps into this community. In the early days when I was working in wireless, the conversation will be very short, very simple one, two vendors. Now you truly are a multi-vendor, software driven network. With that in mind, I think TIP'S mission hasn't changed, but TIP'S Mission continues to be bringing a solution to the market faster for our members.

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (06:20):
Okay. Now you mentioned when you were talking about MTN, where they've been working is in the optical domain and a lot of people think of TIP and they think of Open ran because Open RAN gets a lot of headlines and there's a lot of noise around it and everything. But TIP has always been about much more than just open ran, hasn't it? So how many working groups are there at the moment in Tip Eugene?

Eugina Jordan, TIP (06:42):
So we have a few very active groups and if you look at the network, it's all across the network components. We have obviously Open RAN and it's now very software oriented. We now have two groups. One is for automation and another one is around R. So it's all software oriented. We bring new startups to innovate in the R space, like Caroline was saying in our app space. Then there's obviously OPT, open Optical and there's a lot of badges issued in that group as well and a lot of deployments. And it's not just MTN, it's California and other operators as well. Then obviously telco, ai, this is the most active group. And what is interesting about the way we bring Telco AI into what we do, it's not just for the ram, it's across all the project groups and telco, end telco ai. And we have open wifi group as well. Oh yes. Cannot forget that because thank you. Because we deployed over 100,000 access points and many operators. You saw Sony from at t and also our new chairman on the panel talking about open wifi, A lot of interest and a lot of deployments thanks to TIP happening in that area.

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (08:16):
And Caroline, this seems all very reflective of where the telecom operator community is going because essentially they're all moving towards a sort of next generation infrastructure, aren't they? Something that's completely different and requires probably new advanced technologies. I mean people always talked about commercial off the shelf, but does the telecom sector need something a little bit more than that and pressing companies like Intel to deliver that as well?

Caroline Chan, TIP & Intel (08:48):
Yes, we are doing that. In fact, speaking as Intel, our new silicon chips are coming up, has building AI acceleration in there. So we are answering to the market and you are right when you talk about refreshing cycles, in fact at t, which is on the panel talk about what they are doing now is touching about 70% of their network. That's a tremendous amount of investment they made and you need to be staying in the market for a while. So with the innovation that we are driving is around the software. When they putting that kind of CapEx in the marketplace, when do you get the revenue back? It is driving all this application, the software innovation automation that we talk about, and a telco ai. I just came out of a meeting with an operator who called themselves TechCo in their market space. They really see themselves as a connectivity foundation, but really delivering banking solutions, retail solutions to their verticals. When that kind of changing landscape, we have to answer that landscape. So Telco AI bought out of that

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (10:02):
And this requires a new platform approach, doesn't it? To be able to take all these services very much,

Caroline Chan, TIP & Intel (10:07):
Very much.

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (10:07):
I guess this is what really on a big picture way, this is what TIP is focused on helping to deliver that, right?

Caroline Chan, TIP & Intel (10:13):
Very much so. It's not just about giving you, here's a server, it's about giving you a solution including application. IT tested, integrated, that suits particular vertical. I came out of that meeting very energized because they were talking about specifically a banking solution with a retail points of cell security. When you get into that level of detail, that's when you start driving success outcome for our members.

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (10:42):
Yeah, absolutely. And that's why Telecom TV for years has been talking about the digital service provider because that's really where we're heading from the communication services.

Caroline Chan, TIP & Intel (10:51):
I like that brand digital service provider.

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (10:53):
Absolutely. So I mean finally, what is next for tip? And I know that people here are already thinking, okay, so this Fyuz 24 is nearly over, will it be back in Dublin next year? What will TIP look like next year? So what's next for tip and is Dublin the location for Fyuz 25?

Eugina Jordan, TIP (11:14):
When we know everyone will know we are communities. So we want to ask our members, they, and we've been talking to our members and if our community decides to come back to Dublin or if the community decides to select another allocation, we'll go where our community wants to go because our job at TIP is to provide the platform for our members to become successful in the commercial space.

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (11:46):
And Caroline, what do you think people will expect from TIP in the next year? What will they be looking from tip to deliver to the market?

Caroline Chan, TIP & Intel (11:57):
My guess we look at the survey, but just based on the international half, they would like us accelerate the market. It really is a lot of hunger about what you could see. The hardware investment is flat, so they need to find new ways to generate revenue. For us, we need to together, we deliver solutions, platforms in your words and deliver that. Driving the outcome. Connect them to the buyers, connect them to the end users. End users. At many places at this point, it's not just the operators, it's probably their customers like the oil and gas, like their hospitals and retail. So driving the entire solution, I've been hearing from our members just verbally, that is what they would like to see from us and we will be working together with them to deliver that.

Eugina Jordan, TIP (12:46):
And also operators members, they want innovation.

Caroline Chan, TIP & Intel (12:50):
They want innovation, they want a business outcome. They want more revenue from the investment they already made in their network.

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (12:57):
Absolutely. Okay, great point to end on. Caroline Eugina, thanks very much for joining us today and congratulations on the event.

Caroline Chan, TIP & Intel (13:05):
Thank you for having us.