Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (00:04):
We are in Dublin. We're at fyuz 2024 and I'm here with Sadayuki Abeta. Sadayuki. Great to see you again. You are the Chief Open RAN strategist and evangelist at NTT Docomo, but you are also the CTO of OREX SAI, which is NTT Docomo's joint venture with NEC. Now we've spoken to you many times before at fyuz and other events as well because NTT Docomo has been one of the companies that has been pushing Open, RAN and deploying Open, ran longer than many other operators in the world. So can you just update us on NTT Docomo's open RAN strategy and where you are with the deployment of open ran technology?

Sadayuki Abeta, NTT DOCOMO & OREX SAI (00:50):
Thank you. So we already introduced management network for 4G and 5G and 5G. The number of subscriber exists 30 million. So most of one third subscriber already enjoy the March vendor network. So I can say that the March vendor Open is already stable and already deployed nation widely. So, and what we are now doing and we are now extend our coverage of the VRAN. So VRAN is not deployed so widely yet at this moment. Very few site we increase VRAN but we are planning to extend our VRAN coverage and also we are planning to introduce SMO together with the link.

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (01:38):
So can you just talk a little bit more about that because we now seem to be getting into the time into the era where a lot of more operators are talking about their SMO and the RAN intelligent controller of course, which is part of the SMO. So what are your plans for that? Is this something you've been working on for a while already?

Sadayuki Abeta, NTT DOCOMO & OREX SAI (01:59):
Yes. The SMO itself we develop by ourself and we're more important function in the SMO is a data provisioning and the touch operation. So we want to decrease the co cost of the OPEX especially. And so the most part is automatically worked and Rick is that we are introducing that to some energy consumption, that kind of, so basically functionality we are first introduce and radio stage that we'll more focus on that optimization including the AI technology at this moment more focused on that, the data analysis that the AI of course we are working and in the future we also use the AI technology in commercial.

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (02:54):
Okay. And is this something that's in pilot stage at the moment or just lab tests? Where are you with the

Sadayuki Abeta, NTT DOCOMO & OREX SAI (03:02):
We do that some, the lab tests and we are planning to introduce a SMO in this physical year mean at the end of the march.

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (03:13):
Okay, alright. So in the coming months?

Sadayuki Abeta, NTT DOCOMO & OREX SAI (03:15):
Yeah, coming months.

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (03:16):
Excellent. So from the years of experience that NTT Docomo has with Open ran, what are the big lessons that you've learned about this? Has it lived up to expectations? What kind of insights can you share with other operators?

Sadayuki Abeta, NTT DOCOMO & OREX SAI (03:34):
Yes, we have a long experience with the interoperability or integrations. So especially for we run also it's new for us and if the operator do that integration from scratch, that may take the time. So that is one thing. So how we can share that our experience will result that is at the one that important point to leverage the open online world. So that reason we created our hybrid experience data maybe and also that the IOT we for us vendors usually takes some time because they're the misunderstanding of association. But second, third time is we can the S time. So we are also discussing that. So test equipment, that's how we can reduce that timing.

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (04:36):
Would you say, I mean for years now the open ran supporters have been saying this is something that open ran deployments can be as efficient and meet the performance of traditional radio access network technology. Are we at that point, does Open RAN offer performance parity with traditional RAN systems?

Sadayuki Abeta, NTT DOCOMO & OREX SAI (05:01):
Yeah, very good question. Yeah. Honestly that maybe five years ago, I also doubt that we can really achieve that same performance, I think performance to that so dedicated hardware. But we already did the trial and we are working with the accelerator vendors and we see that ance is almost same performance we can achieve and also the capacity we can support a similar or identical for some cases at the higher capacity than the incumbent vendor. So the Paloma and also power consumption is very important. That is almost competitive EGC vendor.

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (05:46):
Now of course here we're at fyuz. This is the TIPS annual event. What does a company like NTT Docomo get from an organization like tip? What are the benefits that TIP brings to the industry and to operators like doomo?

Sadayuki Abeta, NTT DOCOMO & OREX SAI (06:06):
Yes, we also work with TIP and the two, we are more focusing that the commercial and the NTT Docomo. Also the OREX SAI is my new company that is more focused on the specific commercial solution,

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (06:25):
Right?

Sadayuki Abeta, NTT DOCOMO & OREX SAI (06:25):
Yeah. TIP is more widely covered. The solutions. So the working with the tip, they have a wide range, but we're more focusing that the specific solution for commercial, we are more focused on commercial. So that is complimentary situations. I think some part is covered up, but the target area is at the secret complementary. So work was a tip for you. For example, in initial stage we work with TIP in Indonesia, we did a trial together with tip and that is at the new captain center. We had a good trial together with TIP.

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (07:17):
Okay, interesting. So let's just close out now with a sort of brief overview of what you are doing outside of Japan with OREX SAI. So you're obviously doing trials and pilots and talking to operators in a number of other Asian markets it sounds.

Sadayuki Abeta, NTT DOCOMO & OREX SAI (07:39):
Yes, we did a trial in the Philippines in Asia, Singapore and went to that trial in that Cambodia. So we're working with much of the Southeast Asia countries. Not only the operator but also together with the government.

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (07:59):
Okay. Yeah, of course. As we've already heard today at fyuz, governments play a very important role in determining what might happen in a country's infrastructure, especially around the topic of security. So Abeta-san, great to see you again. Thanks very much for joining us here at TelecomTV and have a good rest of fyuz 2024. Thank you.

Sadayuki Abeta, NTT DOCOMO & OREX SAI (08:26):
Thank you very much.