Charlotte Kan, TelecomTV (00:03):
Hello and welcome to Barcelona for MWC 2025. I am at the HPE booth here with a great panel. We are going to discuss CSPs and SI strategies for private 5G success. Joining us today are Jennifer Diani, head of Cloud Edge and Mobile Private Networks at Vodafone. Thank you for joining us, Jennifer. Thank you. We also have Chris Marwood, who's director of product and portfolio Management at Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Thank you for being with us. And Josh Helm, global vice president for GTM at Kyndryl. Thank you for joining us.

Josh Helm, Kyndryl (00:38):
Thanks for having me.

Charlotte Kan, TelecomTV (00:39):
So let's start with the state of play, shall we? When it comes to private 5G networks, the market uptake has not always been what's been expected, to say the least. So why do you think that's the case and what's changing or what needs to change to drive adoption of 5G networks going forward?

Chris Marwood, HPE (01:00):
Shall I kick it off

Charlotte Kan, TelecomTV (01:01):
Please?

Chris Marwood, HPE (01:02):
Cool. So for the last five years, it's been coming large scale production and deployment of 5G Networks is there, it's on the cusp. If we look at the market forecast, you look at the analysts, it's going to happen. And it hasn't happened. It's been coming and coming and coming. And I think there's a few reasons why it was a new technology and there's always a little bit of trepidation and hesitation around new technology adoption. And there was a complexity associated with that. We added to that the fact that Spectrum license to actually use five P 5G networks is not pervasive across the world. And those standards are yet to evolve and yet to actually get grounded across the business. And I think that's all given customers that thought about, well, let's kind of wait and see. I think the other key point is wifi has been fantastic as well.

(01:58):
Wifi has been a fantastic technology and therefore we need to work out which use cases were correct for P 5G. And I think that is just about starting to happen, for instance, for ourselves. Well I look three years ago the proof of concept to production was sort of three to one on proof of concepts, lots of proof of concepts. And then over the last two years we started to see that change a little bit to become 50 50. So we're starting to see an adoption of production environments for P 5G in various different verticals. So I think we're still on the cusp, but I think it's kind of maybe at the point of maybe pushing over that cusp,

Jennifer Gill Didoni, Vodafone (02:43):
Jen.

(02:45):
Yeah, from my perspective, I think one, we overestimated the market in the early days, as you always do, right? There's a bit of hype, but I think we also underestimated the difficulty of this transition for our customers. These are operational technology mission critical workloads in a lot of cases, and moving from one technology to another is not that straightforward when your business runs on that technology. And so in hindsight, I kind of wish we had approached this in the beginning thinking about this as almost like an I-P-V-P-N to SD WAN transformation or a managed hosting to the cloud transformation. We should really be thinking about how do we help customers identify their pathway and their migration journey and also go with them along the way, give them the assurance that even though they're making change, they're not going to lose any operational capability while we do it, we build solid transition plans, et cetera. And I think that's one of the reasons why we're all here together, because we all have a part to play in making sure that every element is planned in a way that the customer can feel comfortable.

Josh Helm, Kyndryl (04:01):
I couldn't agree more with my distinguished colleagues sitting next to me. So from Kyra, from the lands that we saw we're one of the GSIs that got into the market really early for private because we do really believe that private 5G is an expression of edge computing and it's a living system. So that's one of the challenges that we saw with customers trying to figure out this new emerging technologies, since it is a living system, how does the interoperability going to work? How does security work? And then the law of the magistrate or the law of the land hasn't all codified on what the spectrum strategy is going to be. So the availability in certain countries is there, sometimes it's not. So we're going through that really we were all early into the market for the right reasons because the utility value of this capabilities delights our customers from a return on investment. But it really was, it was a beyond connectivity conversation. We had to teach the market, when I say the market, the industry, that it's a valid solution and we're past that now for the last couple of years because the technology is solid, it is secure, it has a great asset, useful life, and that was just a market learning conversation.

Charlotte Kan, TelecomTV (05:11):
So what has been the hardest thing to do to convince people of the benefits of private 5G networks? What were the main blockers? Chris, you mentioned this sort of resistant to change, resistance to change,

Chris Marwood, HPE (05:22):
Resistance to change from It's more picking the right use case. It's understanding where P 5G works and where other technologies may not work. And we've had proof of concepts in all sorts of verticals, in all sorts of use cases, and they've remained as a non-production environment. It's remained as just something that's been set up in a lab and tested and not gone anywhere. So as we start to see some verticals emerging places like mining where the terrain's significant number of subscribers are perhaps low and it's difficult to get that coverage, we're starting to see customers think about P 5G much more in that type of environment. And also where you see there's an awful lot of footfall like somewhere like here today, right? A lot of footfall in relatively low real estate and you need to have full scale connectivity, real time to support mission critical applications and make sure it's going to work those sort of places. And we're focusing in on terms of the proof of concepts. And they're moving from that then into customers saying, yes, I actually now want, I understand the use case and I now want to actually buy and take advantage of that as a technology.

Charlotte Kan, TelecomTV (06:41):
Josh and Jennifer, what other industries have shown interest in using 5G networks?

Jennifer Gill Didoni, Vodafone (06:50):
So for us, primary verticals are manufacturing, oil and gas, transport and logistics, public sector including defense, but also universities, education, really anywhere that you have the need to go, let's say inside and outside, but have highly secure resilient infrastructure that's available 24 by seven and also for some of the more forward looking use cases are really capable of doing very low latency, high throughput use cases as well.

Josh Helm, Kyndryl (07:26):
So at Kindra where we're delighting our customers from vertical standpoint, there's plenty of good use cases from each vertical, but where we're having really big success is in the industrial environment. So when I say the industrial environment, it's anything from oil and gas to mining to manufacturing where what Jen was just talking about, the low latency, high bandwidth capability needs to be there. Whether it's a digital interaction or a digital process that needs to be solved or digital to digital communication, that's where ndl seeing a success. So highly industrial environments, monolithic kind of plants is where we're having that and where we're having a lot of the success is integrating all their OSI stack where it's possible into that private wireless network and then informing customers. Because still on that emerging technology, it's not a rip and place wifi. It is a compliment for different use cases. And that's part of the learning. When we think about design thinking with our clients, we walk through that kind of consulting process and make sure they're understanding the business value versus a technology decision.

Charlotte Kan, TelecomTV (08:30):
I think that's a very important point indeed. What kind of feedback are you getting from users? Generally?

Josh Helm, Kyndryl (08:39):
Structure for scale is hard because of the complexity with the spectrum, the Silva engineering. So you have to make sure that you're talking to the right line of business owners, whether it's the OT side or the IT with your past security comes up quite a bit in the conversation, make sure that we're protecting all those endpoints and then focusing on the right use cases. When I say focused on the right use case, most companies' greatest asset is their people. So when we think about ESG and worker safety, how are we building these environments to improve people's life? Not only from a efficiency standpoint, but also more importantly from a safety standpoint.

Chris Marwood, HPE (09:17):
And I would just add to what Josh said. Josh talked about this integration of P 5G into the OSS stack. It is a complex environment and the feedback that we're getting is, please, can we simplify P 5G? Can we take some of that complexity away? It is a complex environment to implement, but try to standardize it and simplify it a little bit more so that then we can actually provide that as a P 5G technology into the likes of my colleagues here and say, Hey, look, there's a big integration opportunity. It doesn't stand alone. It doesn't sit there alone. It has to be part and parcel of the end-to-end infrastructure and network environment for the customer. So the feedback's been really clear. It's please simplify it, please demystify it for us, get it to the point of which we think it might be as simple as perhaps wifi or something like that to actually implement.

Jennifer Gill Didoni, Vodafone (10:11):
And I think a lot of buyers right now are confused, to be honest. That's sometimes the feedback they share with me. They have lots and lots of people selling private 5G, like it's the solution to everything in the world. And they've been pitched different stories and they don't understand how to take it from this POC in a box, the dream that they've been sold to being able to scale it around the world with different, we talked about different spectrum, different regulation, different operating models, and especially like a lot of the customers we're dealing with are inherently multinational. They're large companies. And so they need to have a single solution, especially when you bring it together with ot. It needs the systems and the tools and the data and the reporting to fit right into their IT architecture. They can't absorb something that is completely different. And that's part of that transition plan we talked about too, is making sure that it's not just our operational stakeholders who get much more performant connectivity and are happy because they can bring new use cases to life, but also the CIO, the ciso, they need to feel comfortable that there's security, there's standardization, there's scalability as well.

Josh Helm, Kyndryl (11:29):
And then focusing on the users of the technology they have built. So making sure that you're actually having design thinking sections with the workers who are going to be engaged with the technology. So that's a huge focus is if the greatest investment that we can do from a technology standpoint can be implemented if the users aren't going to use it and feel comfortable using that technology. So focusing on the end users is key to make sure some of these POCs progress.

Charlotte Kan, TelecomTV (11:54):
And since you are mentioning the end users and all the stakeholders, Jennifer, I was wondering if you could maybe expand on the role of the ecosystem in private 5G?

Jennifer Gill Didoni, Vodafone (12:04):
It's critical. It's absolutely critical. I think the customers need to know that they have applications that are ready for 5G. They need to know that they have devices that are ready for 5G. They need to have the right support from the SI ecosystem to look at that migration professional service managed services as a telco industry. And that's one of the reasons I'm passionate about talking about it here. We as a telco industry also need to come together to be able to cooperate so that if a customer wants to go everywhere, we've done it in such a way that they can absorb a simple solution from us as well. So ecosystem absolutely right up the value chain and across parallel it's key.

Chris Marwood, HPE (12:53):
Yeah, very much so. I couldn't agree more. The broader the ecosystem, although the broader the complexity of the solutions that you provide that have so many different component parts, just makes things difficult for customers to get their heads round and work out how are they going to actually make this work in their environment. And therefore having the ecosystem across partners and as Jen said, is so critical to give them the confidence that when it is implemented, this is going to work and it's going to support their mission critical services that they then put it into production for. You can't go to a production environment without that. Absolutely essential

Josh Helm, Kyndryl (13:35):
As an si. We don't make the technology. We work with our friends that make the technology. So we focus on advisory services, implementation and managed services. And one of the things that our clients are always asking us is, how is the interoperability of composability going to work with my other investments that I've made? Especially when you're on the manufacturing floor and you're talking about the shop floor, you've got to integrate not only the OT technology and the IT back into their ERP system. So it is an ecosystem industry that we live in for this capability. There's no if and buts about it.

Charlotte Kan, TelecomTV (14:09):
To wrap up this conversation and to be very practical here, what's your advice to SPS and sis looking to build out a private 5G practice and turn the private 5G dream into a reality?

Josh Helm, Kyndryl (14:24):
I would say when you're working with your clients or as we're partnering across the ecosystem, it is built with simplification structure built for structure, for scale, and then focus where we know where our customers want to go and where we know where our customers want to go is make the planet safer. They want to make their employees safer. So don't get stuck enamored with the technology, get enamored with the outcomes that you're driving with your clients. I think that's a success track that will lead to broader adoption with this technology.

Jennifer Gill Didoni, Vodafone (14:56):
Yeah, I guess I would have two things to say. One is it's all about the use cases and the customer outcome. So understanding how the technology is going to help our customers on whatever journey it is that they're trying to make, rather than the technology being a single answer to every problem. And I think that's the second point is if you are going to enter this market, let's do it in a very educated way so that we're helping customers really understand where it can be helpful for them and where it can't be helpful for them. I think part of, one of the things I hear from customers is they go through POCs with, to be honest, anybody can build a POC. Okay, that's not where the art is. And they might have a disappointing experience in that POC because somebody's been messing around with it and then can't figure out how can I scale? How can I make this work at global scale mission critical SLAs for my business? So if you're going to get into it, go big, be ready, and be educated.

Chris Marwood, HPE (16:05):
And we build some of the technology right that HPE and to compliment what Jen and Josh have been saying, we want to simplify the world of P 5G, we want to standardize it so that it can be delivered across multinational boundaries. We want to make it really as simple as it can be to deliver wifi. That's where we want to go. That's what we want to do. And we want to make it so simple so that then our partners can take that as one piece of a bigger jigsaw, bigger environment and implement it with confidence. So that's what we are trying to set out to do.

Charlotte Kan, TelecomTV (16:45):
Now, one more thing before you go. One word, one word to describe what's key to private 5G success.

Josh Helm, Kyndryl (16:52):
That's a great question. I would say co-creation with our clients and with our ecosystem partners is key for the structure for scale.

Charlotte Kan, TelecomTV (16:59):
Alright, so co-creation Chris,

Chris Marwood, HPE (17:02):
Giving customers confidence. The confidence that private 5G will work, the confidence that private 5G is correct for the right use cases. And for us, we want to put that under one single integrated platform so that we can actually manage it seamlessly across our wifi and our P 5G network infrastructure.

Jennifer Gill Didoni, Vodafone (17:22):
Jennifer, I think I'm riffing off these two guys, but for me it's about openness, which is our theme for Mobile World Congress for Vodafone anyway, but it's about openness within the HPE private 5G platform where we can unify things like private 5G wifi ecosystem partners connecting to our customer in innovative ways. But it also, by being open, we earn trust and confidence, like you said

Josh Helm, Kyndryl (17:52):
Can agree more. Fantastic. Fantastic.

Charlotte Kan, TelecomTV (17:53):
Agreed. Well thank you very much, Jennifer, Chris and Josh. Now we know what's key to Private 5G success. It's co-creation, confidence and openness. Thank you for watching.