Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (00:05):
So we're in Dublin for Fyuz 24. I'm here with Petr Lédl. He is the chief architect of DTO Ran and VP of network trials at Deutsche Telekom. Great to see you again. Thanks for taking the time out of your schedule to join us. Can you just give us an update on Deutsche Telekom's Open RAN strategy and plans, where are you with what you're doing with Open Ran?

Petr Lédl, Deutsche Telekom (00:31):
Sure. First of all, and thank you back for having me here. So as far as the open run strategy and the telecom is concerned, so we still continue our approach in focusing in three areas. So the first one is open front hall adoption and the second is independent management framework, and third is hardware, software decoupling via cloud run. So this was core of our strategy or this has been core of our strategy. I should also again reemphasize that approach we are taking is the large scale public mobile, high capacity, high powered networks. So that's what we focus on as a use case and by means getting there is via network modernization. So that's our ultimate, ultimate approach. And now going through these elements of our open ran strategy. So on the open front haul adoption, again we are looking at multi-vendor solution. And of course we don't do multi-vendor because of multi-vendor.

(01:52):
We do it where it matters and where it brings benefit. So here we see that the specifications are already quite mature enough and also implementations are mature enough. This is why we decided to adopt and deploy commercially and we are progressing in our engagement with Nokia and Fujitsu and we are moving towards our target of having 3000 plus sites by 2027. So far also we have seen quite a good performance because otherwise we would not deploy in terms of quality and important KPIs that we have. Second element as mentioned is independent management framework. So this is quite important for us in terms of future flexibility. So that effort is in the development stage at the moment. So we are of course looking at adoption of oh 1 0 2 interfaces that are important for that effort and this will then enable us to get a desired flexibility because then you can much easier work with the infrastructure underneath and at the same time doing the northbound integration into your IT OSS system, which is just once. And then on the third part, which is adoption of cloud run. So again it is more in the development and testing phase. And here our focus is adoption of third party caste solutions.

(03:55):
What I mean by that is that our key focus is to gain flexibility and portability of the run applications on top of a platform. So going towards this horizontalized platform approach to gain flexibility in terms of portability of run applications like CUD instead, but at the same time exploring opportunities to create synergies across different domains. And for that it is important to us, and this is where we are investing, is defining, so-called Deutsche Telecomm cloud blueprint. That is defining how also automation tooling and observability tooling looks like. Next tool, the execution environment itself. Because this would allow you to create synergies by reusing the same tools, reusing processes across different domains. And that's where we have our focus on at the moment.

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (05:04):
Okay. Now in terms of the management layer, the SMO and the evolution of RAN intelligent controller platforms and their applications, this seems to be rising up the stack now in terms of where operators are putting resources and able to do things. But this is something that you've been working on for a couple of years and you've done an internal development for your SMO, haven't you? Where are you with that? Are you close to being able to take it out to a field trial and see if it works or how's that progressing?

Petr Lédl, Deutsche Telekom (05:45):
So as you said, so we have been on that journey for quite some time. We have also demonstrated some of the capabilities of the approach and SMO together with near time R and working also with ecosystem on certain aaps in the context of our earlier trials in Germany. And we are seeing benefit and opportunities coming out of that, basically bringing innovation via a smaller developments in the context of our apps and using that platform and environment to steer the underlying network infrastructure. And along the journey we have also seen other opportunities because for us it'll be important that we arrive to a point where we have a common management framework that is able to address the needs of open run but also existing run deployments. So we have seen a good benefits and opportunities in that space and that's where we are also putting the development efforts right now.

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (07:11):
And in terms of maybe a field trial or a rollout, is that something you'll do in Germany first or will you look at maybe one of the other operating units within the Deutsche Telekom group to try this out?

Petr Lédl, Deutsche Telekom (07:26):
So I think that what our approach is is kind of step approach of course in terms of the open run deployments as such. So our ultimate approach is to bring it, as I mentioned, as part of network modernization when you basically swapped the complete run infrastructure. And in that sense we are treating SMO as common management infrastructure and will be part of the future deployments or independent management framework. So that's where we go and how we see to get to the ultimate picture. And in the meantime, we will also see the needs coming from the traditional infrastructure because we have also communicated our obligations towards German government in Germany to be able to manage one of the existing RAN solutions in Germany. So this is again one of the components or one of the steps in the context of independent management framework that we are progressing on.

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (08:52):
So that's in Germany. And this is the well-known situation with Huawei where the German government has decided that the radios can be retained but not the associated intelligence. So the SMO could evolve to something that, and I think this is happening with other operators as well where they're looking at the SMO ultimately to be the single management layout for whether it's legacy traditional RAN or any kind of ran I guess. But that's some way off though, isn't it?

Petr Lédl, Deutsche Telekom (09:27):
Right. And then as mentioned, so you have certain opportunities and steps to get into that picture, but you are absolutely right. So we want to move away from being dependent always with the management system to the underlying infrastructure providers and then having also multiple integration into your IT systems in the northbound and then SD opportunities occur on the journey we are adopting and deploying according to those needs.

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (10:04):
And then just across the Deutsche Telekom group, are there any particular markets where things are maybe more progressed or are acting as almost not test grounds, but helping you to understand the processes first?

Petr Lédl, Deutsche Telekom (10:22):
Of course, on that front, we are always looking at opportunities where we can gain certain experience and deploy in terms of trials and proof of concepts. But there are no details at this point of time that we could share specifically. But in the sense of the process, how get to the ultimate picture, yes, this is always along the path how we get to the target picture.

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (10:54):
Okay, that's great. Peta, thanks very much for joining us today. Enjoy the rest of Fyuz 24.

Petr Lédl, Deutsche Telekom (11:01):
Thank you very much Ray, and thank you for having me.