Guy Daniels, TelecomTV (00:24):
Welcome back to the Telco as a platform summit, part of our DSP Leaders coverage and time. Now for our live q and a show, I'm Guy Daniels and this is the first of two q and a shows. We have another one tomorrow. At the same time, it's your chance to ask questions on this highly topical subject. I mean the news today of China's commitment to the open gateway initiative, which you can read all about on telecom TV shows how interest in this area is accelerating rapidly. Now we opened our summit with a panel discussion that made the case for a platform-based approach to services. It's only just finished, but we are already receiving questions from you. If you haven't yet sent in one, then please do so now using the q and a form on the website. Let's now meet our guests who are eager to help with all of your questions and joining us live on the program today are Mark Gilmour, chief Technology Officer for Connectivity Europe. Terje Jensen SVP Business Security Officer and network and Cloud technology Strategy for Telenor and Francis Haysom principal analyst with Appledore Research. Hello everyone. Thanks for returning to answer our viewer questions and let's get straight to our first one. Let me read this out for you. Regarding the collaborative cross-industry approach, what are the key points of alignment needed between telcos for platform-based deployments? And Terje, perhaps we could start by getting your thoughts on that.

Terje Jensen, Telenor (02:16):
Yeah, thanks Guy. A great question. I think so as it goes for any collaboration of course with across companies, you need to define a catalog on what kind of capabilities of what kind of services you have available. And then you also need to define the interfaces or call it also APIs on how to utilize those capabilities or how to activate those services. So those are the two fundamental building docs. Then of course, just to pull that into commercial or operational context and no, probably potentially starts the complication from a telco point of view. So we of course would like to understand the usage into say, call it a workflow lifecycle, the descriptions or whatever, basically a process. And so that would be part of an operating model. So that will also be a part of the description of what is the workflow to use the different capabilities of different services.

(03:18)
And the reason for that tend to be from the telco is that we are managing some of the privacy data. For example, we are managing some of the critical infrastructure data and so forth, so we need to take care of these aspects. So for example, if there is a request for an identity verification, is there a user consent for example to use that information and so forth. And this might be of course complicating the process. So it's not only about the catalog and the APIs, but it's also the flow of introductions. Another thing, of course, it's if there's payment involved, there's also regulations around payment as well. And all these kinds of things comes into play when you're doing it in a commercial setting. And this might be of course looked upon as telcos complicating things, but some of these things are purely coming from the regulations or even the laws and some of the things are of course coming into that we need to protect the customers as well.

(04:15)
So those are the kind of the fundamental things there. So it's the catalog and the APIs, but it's also the process flow in a sense. Then of course the question I think is also addressing to the collaboration across different protocol. And then of course it's good to use lean on national standards as I see it. And some relevance ones are Kamara or the Line Foundation and GSMA collaborations and others coming from, say for example, TM forum. So that means that similar services could be available and also the same APIs could be defined for across a number of different telcos. So on top of that, I think it's also when you talk about the cross-industry approach, it's good to understand how these services are actually used consumed. So it's not only about the telco components or the platform components and the services, but it's also the way it's used by different consumers or different users.

(05:10)
So that's also good that we have back to the intent on how we want to utilize these kind of things. So that could also be part of the process description actually on supporting the lifecycle and that also the user of these APIs are actually expressing the higher level intent and that's also important when you come to what kind of services are we actually exposing and meaning the level of abstractions and there might be for example, connectivity services like voice and messaging and the broadband for example, but it could also be service on a bit of next level, for example, exposing a higher quality video service and even on the next level, for example, using that high quality video service into an online secure monitoring. So all these level of capabilities or abstractions could be relevant into the APIs and all this could be part of the same platform and opening up for different ways to different kind of users to consume these different services.

Guy Daniels, TelecomTV (06:12):
Great. Terje, thanks so much indeed. Obviously a lot of areas of alignment for Tokos to consider, but as you were saying, there's already a lot of work being done. There are groups out there who are putting together frameworks and what have you to support that. Let's see if our other guests want to jump in on add any extra insights into this. Mark, did you want to add anything to this initial question about the points of alignment that we need to consider?

Mark Gilmour, Connectivitree (06:41):
Yeah, happy to. I think Terje covered it really, really well. Those three areas of catalog API, well API see as a methodology of being able to deal with that interconnect and then the business processes. I think the processes and the workflow is really, really, really important and those APIs can be used to standardize across how those workflows would operate. I think the catalog though is really, really vital. What actually needs to be exposed in order to deliver an end-to-end service for the customer because in the market where I am for example, in the wholesale market, I'm going to be exposing slightly different services to my alliance and connect partners as they're exposing them to their enterprise customers. But overall that that's to produce an end-to-end service. So it's tying those in so there's work to be done then on collaborating together on how that end-to-end service delivery is achieved. And the other thing that I think that needs to happen on the collaboration front is there needs to be a good understanding of who fronts to that customer. If we want to have a truly collaborative cross operate across platform environment so that we can,

(08:22)
You kind of need to drop the ego a little bit and work on a collaborative model perhaps also commercial model to then be able to offer best service for the customer.

Guy Daniels, TelecomTV (08:34):
Well, very interesting. Mark, thanks very much for those additional points. Francis, any thoughts on this initial question on collaboration and points of alignment?

Francis Haysom, Appledore Research (08:43):
Yes, perhaps I can put in a little bit of a controversial view here. I hear in the question a little bit of what I would term is a little bit of the telco standards process is that we all need to collaborate, we all need to agree on what we're going to do in advance in order that the telco solution can work. And sure there are aspects of regulation that will affect the whole of the telco industry, but I think there's a different form of collaboration which starts with actually people really saying, look, here's a commercial proposition that I want to make maybe in my area or maybe globally that I think I'm going to take the lead on. And there could be, I've just come back from A-C-N-C-F conference Q con in Paris and a very different mentality in terms of collaboration, start with the problem that needs to be solved, then collaborate to make that problem go away. And I think Telco almost needs to relearn some of its history here. Things like pay as you go as an example, were not something that started as a collaborative initiative. They were started by individuals telcos saying, I want pay as you go as a way of differentiating myself in the market and we perhaps need to get some more of that energy into this process.

Guy Daniels, TelecomTV (10:08):
Great. Thanks so much Francis. Terje, you wanted to come back in and to respond to I believe what you might've just heard Terje.

Terje Jensen, Telenor (10:15):
Yeah, no, no, I was just supporting actually Francis, I think it's not in my mind at least controversial at all I think. So it's not like you have to collaborate and agree in all dimensions before you can start going. You better start going with some focused value to say a number of customers for example. So build on that and then start on a platform in that way, but of course start in the way that it can be escaped. I think that's very important, but it's also good to start with something which is providing value as delivering a quick proof point on that approach is valuable. And I also fully agree with what Mark is saying, that in the wholesale retail setup there will be a number of roles and a number of different offerings and for example, say Telenor for example, we are in all these roles. That means that we are going to expose a number of capabilities and in some cases we are also going of course to compete with someone we are collaborating with. So this is kind of the dynamic landscape we have to maneuver in and it's not given that everything will be very clear when we start, but it's also what I think Francis is saying that we need to get started then we solve the problems as they are appearing.

Guy Daniels, TelecomTV (11:26):
Excellent advice. Thanks very much everyone. Three sets of great advice there for our first question. So let's move on to another viewer question we have received in the past hour or so, telco as a platform should be adopted as holistic and agnostic to the type of network and yet the wider industry tends to associate them as 5G or mobile. How therefore do we broaden the message to include fixed and wifi and attract developers and customers to those networks? I think we're guilty of focusing on mobile an awful lot. Mark, what thoughts do you have to make sure that this is holistic and agnostic?

Mark Gilmour, Connectivitree (12:14):
Thanks guy. That's why I'm here ultimately to give a non-mobile or perhaps an extended view on that rather than just be 5G or cellular centric. I've spent a lot of my career on that side of the fence, but right now I'm involved in and focused on the fixed and particularly on the backbone element of the network, which is where I started off my career. It's kind of been fun to come full circle onto that, but there's been some great work actually in the last few years on bringing together some of those concepts around catalog, around APIs, around service offering in the wholesale market for example. And we've got industry bodies such as meth TM forum was mentioned earlier where a lot of work has got in to understand what is that ordering and orchestration process that needs to happen on a global scale to enable end-to-end service across the board, which ultimately will be delivered to the end user via cellular fixed broadband sort of offering.

(13:33)
So the person raising the question I think really has hit into the right sort of area that this is an opportunity to be holistic and end-to-end focused in the approach if we're going to go down the approach of network as a service or telco as a platform. And I think this really then creates opportunity and creates an environment that really does have to happen across all of the aspects, the cellular and part of it is one access medium onto that very important access medium. But interestingly enough, even when I was working in that environment, the only part of it that is wireless is really the bit between the end user and the cell tower. The rest then goes onto fixed networks, particularly if we're wanting to achieve the sort of latency bandwidth and performance characteristics that along the applications start to demand. So it is an end-to-end approach.

(14:47)
It is a bit more of a holistic approach and multiplayer operators, those that have their cellular networks as well as fixed as well as enterprise grade access, those are the sort of people that we are working with and we are seeing how they are developing their platform offering and then in conjunction with what we're up to, how we then extend that capability onto a more global reach. It's really fascinating what's happening in that. And so there is strides, there are movements going in that direction and things like meth, things like TM forum, a good base points or foundations to build upon. But I really agree with Francis's comment earlier on in that we can't take a traditional standards delivery organization sort of approach that we have done over the many decades of telco and just wait for a decade upon decade release because that just doesn't work. We need to move much, much quicker than that and adopt a much more engaged development process for that and call it what you will agile or whatever, DevOps, all those sort of things. But essentially what it means is listening to the customer, developing in line with their customer needs and then delivering to that end customer in a timely manner and not forcing a technology or forcing the next iteration upon them, but it's more intent and customer driven.

Guy Daniels, TelecomTV (16:29):
Great. Thanks so much Mark. The opportunity is there for us if we want to grasp it. And you mentioned what Francis was saying earlier, let's go over to Francis now. Francis, what are your thoughts on this?

Francis Haysom, Appledore Research (16:41):
Yeah, I think Mark makes a really, really strong point, which is that there are APIs and opportunities all over telco. It's not simply in 5G or in mobility more widely. I think again, I come back to some earlier point, we've got to start with what is the problem we're trying to solve for developers. There's a danger in this question again, which is we are looking for the universal API to all telco and I don't think that's the way developers see it and many different networks are providing very, very different capabilities. So definitely look for alignment in APIs for example, access on demand on a mobile network or on a fixed network is certainly something that is ideally standardized in order that the developer can use it whatever the technology in an area location-based services limited, probably limited opportunity there. So I think the important thing I think for all of these APIs is start with what is the problem I'm trying to solve for the developer and what is the likely commercial model that they'll provide for me delivering that one. And in some ways I think we almost need to look at it in a slightly different way, which is actually APIs targeted the at specific developer communities rather than the APIs targeted at what the telco thinks they can sell to the developers' communities may well be the opportunity for telco as a platform.

Guy Daniels, TelecomTV (18:11):
That's food for thought there Francis. Yeah. Well I wonder if any of our viewers online might want to send in some follow-up questions to that. That's very interesting either today or for tomorrow's show where we focus more on APIs. Terje, let's come across to you on this question of being more holistic in the approach

Terje Jensen, Telenor (18:31):
On the risk of being boring. I also fully agree I think with Francis and Mark, I think as I always see, one of the basic ideas for the platform is actually to have a place to expose any assets or any services and that should be independent of the underlying technology and it's also a place for a user to go in order to utilize or invoke these kind of services again should be independently independent of the underlying technology. So it's not about only about 5G or even mobile, it's goes across fixed and the other types of access as well. And we have been engaged in a couple of examples if you may. So one case is that we have implemented as a demo case quality on demand, which then of course for say for example for a high quality video conference service which works on 5G definitely, but just as well also on fixed access or optical access if you want.

(19:26)
And in order to work in a good way, it's not only the access configuration which needs to be placed, it might also be configuration of the device that is the terminal itself. So it's not only about access, it's also about number of different domains which need to capture then be addressed for example, which can be then evoked through the platform itself. Another example is managed wifi. I think it's also indicated in question, so for example access or managing smart home or even on the office wifi configuration. So that's also we see examples which is already supported out there through our platform. But then of course the question I think is also what Francis was saying, it doesn't have to be one single platform solving everything or one single platform instance solving everything. It could be a number of different instances and different implementation of that. And just to broaden the question maybe even further, so what we are doing is that in the platform itself is not only overall that is tel lower assets but also pulling in partner assets as a part of the offering. So we should also be part of a platform approach that we can expose any kind or hosting any kind of offerings or services as part of the platform.

Guy Daniels, TelecomTV (20:46):
Thanks. Yeah, and thanks for telling us off Telenor's approach as well and what you are doing at the moment. Let's move on to another viewer question here. I'm just reading as we speak Francis, let me put this one across to you. Are the majority of telcos ready to offer platform services to enterprise customers or is this at the moment just a capability for a handful of either very large or very niche telcos? What do you think?

Francis Haysom, Appledore Research (21:19):
I honestly think everybody can play in this area. I don't think, this is not about how big you are, it's about how targeted that you are and your focus on a commercial opportunity. Any telco that can address what is it my applications need, what is it the enterprises that I'm engaging my, what I'm exposing my platform to. It can clearly say what that capability is and why somebody would want to buy it has the opportunity to succeed here and I've used the comment many, many times a good platform and a good API is one that is used. It's not about how well formed it is or anything else like that. The opportunity for the smaller providers I think is quite huge and we're already seeing that in some aspects of some of these solutions that the operators in the global south are providing in terms of delivering to their local development communities in their specific areas. Another area specifically to do with the enterprise is using other enterprise platforms or we've recently done a profile of service now is service bridge capability, which is something which a telco can buy as part as an enterprise and provide that to enterprise customers providing a seamless experience from the enterprises network into the telcos network. So there's a whole load of opportunities which are there, some of which are ready and off the shelf capabilities that can be provided by telcos of any size.

Guy Daniels, TelecomTV (23:03):
Thanks Francis. So it's open to all, let's hear the views from Mark and Terje as well and Mark, let's start with you.

Mark Gilmour, Connectivitree (23:11):
I think it's a mixed bag actually in terms of capability. I agree with Francis about opportunity. The opportunity is definitely there. Maybe I can give from our own experience what we're seeing right now, connectivity, we kind of place ourselves as a wholesale player. We place ourselves kind of in the middle with lots of our connect and alliance partners and channel partners around that and what we have found in enable to generate platform success, we need to be able to meet those carrier partners and channel partners at where they are able to at this moment in time with legacy systems in place with large scale development programs and things like that. It's not always that easy for them to be able to pivot or move swiftly, but there are mechanisms and we've adopted a four tier approach to that. So where we have the ability that if somebody has got no automation capability at all and no real mechanism for that, then we can provide a simple translation as it were, or a manual task that can be automated that is automated, that can be feature as part of the platform and it is more like a static approach there behind.

(24:47)
So there's a bit of manual work going on in the background there, but it enables a player, a partner without or at the beginning of their automation journey because ultimately that is part of the need or the requirements, the prerequisites to be able to move towards a platform approach and network as a service sort of approach. You need to have that level of automation and orchestration in there. Things that we've spoken about in other of these sessions and other of these sort of summits, it all ties in together. This doesn't stand on its own. So we take that approach of helping somebody that's at that base level. Then you have those that are further along in their automation journey or have the desire to do that and we can provide an instance of our own platform that can reside within their network to then start to create a bit more of a fabric across operational, cross cross, cross-functional platform.

(25:57)
Then there are others that have gone full hog down their own way, they've got their own integration, they've got their own orchestration and platform place pieces in place and they may have done that via standardized approach such as meth, LSO and if so then we can do some quick testing and we can start to integrate, although they may have done that on a proprietary way with their own APIs that have been created. And again, we can take that methodology, we can do some translation, some interoperability to make sure that we align and move forward. So we kind of have these four levels that we are seeing in the market at the moment right from, I have nothing today but I want to play in that space through to, I've already got full integration, full automation, full platform and this allows us then to sit behind that utilizing some common APIs, utilizing some developed APIs to then bring extra value. So that's where I see the current position and I just see it continuing to grow and we're ingrained into making that happen.

Guy Daniels, TelecomTV (27:06):
Great. Thanks very much Mark. So there's ways to offer platform services irrespective of where you are on your individual transformation journey. Excellent. Terje, let's get some thoughts from you as well, please.

Terje Jensen, Telenor (27:19):
Yeah, I would believe that most telcos who are offering or delivering B2B or enterprise services beyond the basic connectivity would have some kind of service platform in place and would therefore also be able to support APIs or the platform perspective on two external users. So that means that if you have that, unless it's a very, very old fashioned system, you probably have something you can build on. Then of course it comes to question that's a potential you have, to what extent are you willing to use it and what kind of positions would you like to take towards the external market. I think what Mark is alluding to, which is of course a basic question, it's not only a technical discussion that is also the organization, the skill sets you have and those kinds of things which needs to come into place in order to address those and just to be some of the, I would say old fashioned, old style services which we see in some of the service platforms are basic things like the switchboard attendance, core queuing, customer care and all those kind of things.

(28:24)
And if you really want to take advantage of this from an enterprise point of view, you might need to integrate that with other enterprise IT systems and to support that of course you need an API and then you are back to the platform you in a way to support this in a scalable way. I think that's also what Mark is alluding to, that there are ways to do that and many of the telcos have components there whether they want to are willing to open up. It's not only a technical discussion, it's also a business discussion of course, but the potential I think is there for many of the tech calls. Then of course a question, how are you going to approach it and how do you want to develop it further then that's basically a business question.

Guy Daniels, TelecomTV (29:05):
Thanks Terje. Yeah, absolutely. There's technical guidelines, there's technical reasons, but there's also the business reasons and individual telcos need to decide that that's their strategy they want to pursue. Thanks very much indeed everyone. We're going to pause for a few seconds because we do want to check in on our audience poll for the telco as a platform summit. The question we are asking you this week is what are the main benefits to network operators of a telco as a platform strategy? And you can see the real time votes appearing right here to my right. Look at that one. Create new service opportunities in the enterprise market. No surprise, I guess that, well I don't think there's a surprise that is proving to be a very popular answer choice now. If you've yet to vote, please do so. I'm already seeing the votes go up every few seconds, so we're getting a lot of response into this poll. We will take a final look at the voting during tomorrow's live q and a show. Well, we still have time today for more questions, so let's get through as many of them as we can and we'll start with this one. How do our panelists see telcos working with aggregators and hyperscalers given their proximity with developers and enterprises globally and the fact that hyperscalers have much better relations with developers? Terje, let's come to you first on this one. This is a question we see quite a few times actually. What are your thoughts?

Terje Jensen, Telenor (30:44):
Yeah, no, it's a very good question I think, and just to take one by one to start with the aggregators and just to maybe jump to the conclusion, there will be multiple ways to engage with the aggregators and hyperscalers and starting with aggregators the way we are engaging, for example, we are both as a customer of an aggregator, say for example on SMS, which is a basic service, the number of aggregators out there which is offering SMS and termination of SMS and those kind of things. It might be a customer of those. We are also in some cases the aggregator ourself, so we have units within Intel nor which is actually doing as their main business becoming aggregator across a number of other opcos in Intel nor. And the third relationship is also that we providing inputs to aggregators as a local company for example.

(31:35)
So for aggregators you will see all mix of engagement with telcos and you can see that even in the same market although tend to be on different services. So that's kind of a bit of a complex landscape how we see it right now. Then of course a bit similar as we see it on hyperscalers. So hyperscalers of course would also position themselves a bit differently in the value network. So take for example, if you go into the cloud platform of course, which might be the cleanest in the way, we clearly will be a consumer of that in some cases, but we also partner in some of these setups. So say for example in the mobile private network we were running in one of our Asia operations, we were using that for a harbor case, so that was installing an edge cloud with a full blown mobile core on top of that, which was a partner hyperscaler and also we connecting video cameras which was coming from other partners and also video analytics top of that, which is another partner of the hyperscaler and that all these kind of components together solve the customer problem for the harbor.

(32:48)
So it'll be a combination there as well on different engagement with hyperscalers and we also clearly recognize that and hyperscalers have a broad ecosystem and they have been playing in this area for a number of years, so it's not really a surprise that they have this broad ecosystem and they are also of course have quite a broader appeal to developers in that sense, but again, I think they're also happy to reach out to telcos in many markets to collaborate as we are part of this, the last leg to the customers in many cases and we also are taking care of these national regulations and can tick off those in number of cases. So I think there you will see all these combinations, so all the collaboration we telcos and across aggregators and hyperscalers and it's trying to be a win-win of course, and then of course it's DY landscape and so let's see how this plays out at the end. Of course it might be different in different regions of the world, but so far I think it's making the point bigger and we can all enjoy the bigger point in that sense.

Guy Daniels, TelecomTV (33:58):
Thanks Terje. That's what we want because obviously yeah, as you say, the hyperscalers do have, well their global reach is very attractive to developers and hence their extensive ecosystem. Francis, multiple ways to engage with aggregators and hyperscalers. What are your thoughts?

Francis Haysom, Appledore Research (34:14):
I think the most important thing is not to see hyperscalers and aggregators as either total impossible competition or they are part of the ecosystem which any telco platform has to engage with. I think it's also important to say with both the hyperscalers and the aggregators, they got to where they were by solving a real developer problem and if we can again just make sure that we as telco are focused at exactly the same thing. If we are solving a developer problem, if we're solving it with an aggregator or in competition to an aggregator or in collaboration with a hyperscaler or in competition with a hyperscaler, if we are clear what the commercial model and why a developer wants to use us, we can succeed. I think the other important thing is last week I was actually at A-C-N-C-F conference in Paris called CubeCon, which is all about, it's a huge developer community doing stuff with open source, particularly whilst hyperscale was important in the conversation, aggregators were part of this conversation on, for example Twilio. Twilio was there. It's also important to say it was lots of small operations doing clever things, collaborating, creating new ecosystems, creating new opportunities in there and I think again, if Telco can visit, see these types of events and see the possibility in different form, then possibly they'll see hyperscale and aggregators as less of an impossible mountain to compete against.

Guy Daniels, TelecomTV (36:04):
Thanks very much Francis, and I think one of my takeaways from day one of this summit is what's the problem we're looking to solve for developers and keeping that front and center right. Next question, here we goes. When we look at the big internet platforms, they are controlled by single companies. We appear to be talking more about a federated approach with numerous interconnected network platforms and given that the big tech companies still haven't worked out how to do this successfully, what chance does telco have? Francis, perhaps I can come back to you with this one. Any thoughts from you as to are we talking about a federated approach and what's our chances of success?

Francis Haysom, Appledore Research (36:49):
I come back to what you just said guy, which is what is the problem we're trying to solve? There may be a problem that needs a federated approach. There may be one that doesn't need a federated approach but start. If we can start with what is the problem we're going to solve, we're in a much better place to start that dialogue. And I mentioned in pay as you go earlier, another good example of it's not about waiting for the whole of telco to be aligned and delivering the same thing. If you look at mobile money and pays are at safari comm was not waiting there for mobile money. Standards be defined. It went out and effectively captured the Kenya market in the process of delivering the mps the solution. So we need to be thinking about that type of opportunity. Federation may come in the future, the telcos leading telcos there may in fact insert themselves as aggregators or federation suppliers in this thing.

(37:50)
All sorts of bits and bottles that are out there to be pursued, but what is the problem we're going to solve, focus on it, deliver it, and then see how it scales maybe globally before we start thinking about everything has to work together on a global scale here. I think coming back to I think the second question, which is can the smaller players deliver here, it's all about focus. Smaller players can deliver. They may not deliver to a global community, but if they can deliver capabilities developers in a country, in an area and that development capability is widely used, they can have success.

Guy Daniels, TelecomTV (38:31):
Great, thanks very much Francis, and let's go across to Mark as well.

Mark Gilmour, Connectivitree (38:34):
Mark, what are your thoughts? I think it does come back to the problem. What are we trying to solve? If we look at it, for example, from a connectivity point of view, if we took that as the use case, then Telco, inherently regulatory is a national or regional play because of regulation, because of those things. So in order to create global scale a global platform, then yes, we probably are talking about a federated approach of telco's operating or working together in a framework, maybe meth, LSO, maybe in the open API approach those sorts of things to create collaboration to offer global scale, global global opportunity again to solve that end user or that end customer problem. I think if we look at the question worded at the big internet platforms, well yeah, what are they? They're essentially, they are successful marketplaces that gain traction because they enabled to a greater or lesser extent developers to develop different platform, different approaches, different service offerings over the top.

(40:04)
Now if we in the telco environment can emulate some of that, then we'll see a multitude of different sort of platforms coming up. Obviously you kind of gravitate towards those big internet type platforms, but they're not always under the same umbrella. If you look at, they are actually a federation of lots of different services that are just offered through one window. For example, think of the airline industry for example. It can either be a grouped alliance as it were, like the major airlines have grouped themselves to be able to offer end-to-end capability flights and things across code share partners and all that sort of stuff. Or you've got the travel agent sort of approach that is an open market place with all of those players coming on board. So it may well appear that there is only one big platform, but actually there isn't lots and so therefore I think the opportunity is there and the success really is about how well we meet the needs of the customer, be that a developer customer or the end user, the end customer that's using these development tools or these services and things that are either developed externally or developed are also then in-house as well and enabled through a global approach, for example, where that's needed.

(41:42)
So I don't think we have to worry or fear that we can't do a federated approach. I think we can if we needed to, actually we're used to that within the telco space. We've been doing that for years in order to provide connectivity across the globe. That's what we do here. We're just talking about making that journey a little bit more seamless, a little bit more engaging and a little bit more dynamic and responsive to the customer problem the customer needs, which is coming out pretty stronger I think in this q and a session today.

Guy Daniels, TelecomTV (42:22):
Indeed it is. Yeah. Thanks very much Mark for those comments. And Terje a let's go across to you for your comments on this question about a federated approach.

Terje Jensen, Telenor (42:32):
Yeah, no, I broadly agree with Mark and Francis. I think it's important to have a sharp focus on the business value, what you're creating value for the customers and for yourself, and then of course also other partners who are part of the overall delivery. But I think it's also back to maybe where the question is coming from is that the nature of a network and connectivity business as I see it is a bit different than the of course nature on the hyperscalers. So networks tend to be local with local coverage and capacity using regulated spectrum bands. We are complying with all the national laws on critical infrastructure and privacy for example and so forth. So the business logic around building a network is a bit different than some of these hyperscalers and where they're coming from. Then I think it's actually what Mark is saying is also very fundamental and very important that of course telcos have been used to collaborate, just look at the specifications on the 5G and 4G fiber to the home and so forth.

(43:35)
So this has been an outcome of a huge collaboration across within the industry and of course it's also the simple fact that we have roaming across a number of countries is also we can put into the federation if you want or the collaboration. So there is collaboration of course we can argue about the speed and the agility for the telcos in order to solve new customer problems. So we cannot have a 10 years or decade long specification phase to do that. It needs to be much more rapid in that sense. Then I think it's also that we have demonstrated the potential value of network and connectivity through this APIs and also through the platforms both in commercial setting and also through a number of showcases, for example, with GSMA and also TM forum. So there is proof points I think on that collaboration can be done, but I think it's also very fundamental and important what Mark and Francis is saying, you don't have to solve the complete picture before you start. You can start much, much smaller on a focus customer case and then pull in the partners that you need in order to deliver on that and of course future will tell on how this comes out at the end, but for sure if you don't engage, you'll not be part of the winning team.

Guy Daniels, TelecomTV (44:55):
No, quite right. Thanks Terje. We've got to engage whatever happens in the longer term. Right? Thanks very much. Let's try and squeeze in a couple more questions. I think we can do two more questions before we run out of time. So let's look at our next one. How will the platform integrate with existing telco infrastructure and legacy systems? Terje, perhaps I could come back to you for this one about integration with existing infrastructure and legacy systems.

Terje Jensen, Telenor (45:30):
Yeah, I would try to be quick, I think as we are probably running out of time, but of course legacy systems, that's a bit of a negative melo or tone to it. So of course if it's going to be legacy the term in the terms that is a problem, you can look upon that we are introduced platforms as a one way to isolate or even expose that legacy to partners. For example, if the legacy system is not able to support mostly tendency, for example, or security isolation, it might be an opportunity to build something on top called a platform, for example, to interface a customer still towards the legacy system. So it's a way to potentially to isolate the legacy from the demands from external demand. Typically, you can also look upon, and that's something we also doing. We are looking upon a platform purely for internal use to make this legacy and to isolate and to have different life cycles on the legacy systems. So allow us to decouple them and to start facing out some of them and also freeze others of the system. So it's a way to bring the business flexibility in quality it into the system architecture and platform might be one of the components in order to achieve that.

Guy Daniels, TelecomTV (46:47):
Yeah, it could be interesting. Thanks Terje. Mark, would you like to add some thoughts to this question of integrating with current infrastructure?

Mark Gilmour, Connectivitree (46:55):
Yeah, it goes back to a little bit to the point I was making earlier on one of the other questions about meeting partners or meeting systems where they're ready. Toter has made a great point about abstraction, putting in a platform, some sort of orchestration or automation or abstraction layer into that technology or legacy service to be able to then expose actually the key parts that are necessary for service delivery or to resolve the problem. And I think that's a very good way of being able to manage that. We've had some very in-depth discussions and moving forward with a number of niche players actually that helps solve a distinct problem or a distinct use case that actually then allows legacy system to be able to still get full use out of that. But in an automated platform, as a network, as a service sort of environment, you can still leverage some of those skills. So I think it's really important to be able to meet the, or design your systems, design your platform in such a way that you can meet partners, you can meet technologies or other systems at where they are ready to. So it lowers the barrier to entry for consuming service or consuming through the platform that you've orchestrated or designed. And I think that's really, really important because ultimately that's going to build to the success. If it's incredibly difficult to onboard into your platform, then the success is going to be limited.

Guy Daniels, TelecomTV (48:59):
Great. Yeah, thank you very much Mark and Francis, over to you for thoughts on this question of integration with existing infrastructure.

Francis Haysom, Appledore Research (49:05):
I'll come back to the visit to Cube Con actually last week. I think first thing is actually to make use of a lot of the developer communities, the development approaches of cloud native here. There were a number of companies that i met last week which were talking about API gateways, how you take legacy code and you expose it as API, even if its not to the external world. Just API-ising and platformising your existing legacy, such that it can be exposed and can be easily integrated in this modern approach, not the sort of classic large-scale system integration transformation that i think telco has traditionally favoured. Again, taking existing code, using things for example, taking java and being able to deploy it on kubernetes to allow the scale in terms of the opportunity that comes from that one. The third thing i would say is the whole of our community really needs to take on board, i think there's a very famous Jeff Bezos Amazon email where he says basically if you don't expose anything as an API then you'll get fired. We need to have that sort of idea. Even if we are not going to make something external, think about what we are doing as an API that somebody else can consume, we can generate from our legacy there. And the final thing I woudl say is, and this is very specific to camara is that the API is one thing, but the actual infrastructure, the support network for that API is equally important. One of the challenges, actually saying for example, some of the network slicing APIs is not that we can't provide service orchestration or we can't provide the network slice, it's that we don't have the capacity particularly in the RAN network to be able to deploy on demand services. So we need to be looking a lot more at the wider infrastructure that allows us to deploy these APIs, and actually have consumers use them and not be limited in the way that can be used.

(51:31)
Great, thanks very much Francis. Thanks everyone. Looking at the clock, we are almost out of time, but I do want to get in this final question. So let's see what we can do with this final question and it says, in what ways does a platform strategy change the product that the CSPs are selling to its customers and how does it open up new wholesale and channel opportunities for them all about the service? Mark, are we able to start with you on this one? Your thoughts about how it may change the product and the new opportunities? It opens up,

Mark Gilmour, Connectivitree (52:09):
I think first and foremost, it can turn a static product into something that is dynamic and extensible. That's what we have noted. What we have devised with our products and services is that you can start to do, you can be much more flexible with how that product is consumed, be it commercial models, be it technical pieces. We found that actually architecting our network and our service offering and our automation platform allows us to be able to do things with the technology that has been there for a long time but really just couldn't be accessed when I think, for example, on cross continental transport links, for example, data transport links, the ability to select and really identify routing, which becomes really important on very long distance network routes, for example, for resiliency, for geopolitical reasons, all those sort of things that become steerable. I mean it's been there in the technology for a long time. You've just been really difficult to access it at a service level that can be exposed. Those are the sort of things that can happen. There's many more that we could go to, but I'll give others the time to jump in there. But yeah, I think it does open up windows to be more flexible and extensible with the products and services.

Guy Daniels, TelecomTV (53:51):
Great. Thanks very much, mark. Well let's hear from Francis and Terje to round out the program. Francis, we'll come to you first. Does the platform approach change the product that CSPs are offering?

Francis Haysom, Appledore Research (54:03):
Actually, that's a very simple answer. Yes, but I come back to, it only changes it if we're very clear. What is it we're trying to do, who wants to buy it, and what is the opportunity from that one? If we start from that basis and we start to expand that out across a number of use cases, that gives us a huge opportunity for new products, new ways of earning revenue as a service, on demand services, et cetera. That platform enables you to do that. But start with the commercial model and the commercial focus, who you're going to work with, who your customers are and the rest follows.

Guy Daniels, TelecomTV (54:42):
Great. Thanks so much Francis and Terje, let's come to you for our final word.

Terje Jensen, Telenor (54:47):
Yeah, so my answer is also yes. I think one thing it does is actually lowering the threshold for offering more products. So that's one of the things. So actually, and if you want to read about this, you can probably look into our technology strategy. So there are two aspects there, which I would just highlight very briefly. I think one is that we are actually what we call layering, which is collapsing an integrated stack. So it's have the opportunity to offer a lot more new product types. That means also new customer types, and we also want to deliver this as a service, which is another way to provide and also consume the services. So these are characteristics we'd like to achieve with following this approach.

Guy Daniels, TelecomTV (55:34):
Great. Thanks Terje. Well, we are out of time now. The hour is up. Thank you so much to all of our guests who joined us today and do remember to send in your questions for tomorrow's live q and a show as soon as you can. Don't leave it too late and please take part in the poll. There is still time for you to have your say. Here's the agenda for tomorrow. Day two of the summit. We have a panel discussion for you on how APIs and middleware can support vertical applications. Plus I interview G-S-M-A-C-T-O, Alex Sinclair about the open gateway initiative. Until then, thank you for watching and goodbye.