Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (00:12):
We're in London for FutureNet World 2025. I'm here with Francis Haysom from Appledore Research. Francis, thanks very much for joining us. You've had a very busy couple of days here at the event. Part of your duties moderating a panel that actually wasn't about AI or automation. I think it might've been the only one in the two days here, but yours was focused on open, ran. Were there any specific takeaways or outcomes from that particular session?

Francis Haysom, Appledore Research (00:46):
Yeah, I think Ray, I go and say if we went back three years, a discussion or open ran would really been the centerpiece. It would been the centerpiece of any discussion in this area. Open RAN felt like a lot of sort of added piece to this year's show and I think that is really a sort of sense of where we've got to it. In one sense, open RAN has now become a very mature technology in the sense that many operators worldwide are now very visibly rolling out ran platforms, but at the same time a lot of the sort of energy, the innovation, et cetera, isn't really there. What we're seeing is open use of open standards, but very much the traditional players taking the major role here. And I think in terms of the discussion I had, we had representatives from three operators, Telenor, Three and VMO2 in the uk and very much, some of them were three for example, is still very much at that kind of evaluation stage as sort of like we can't make the economics and scale fully work out, work out for us.

(02:10):
Others are at the level, yes, we do want this, we want this in terms of resilience, but we're still not quite sure of the full benefits from what we're getting. The business case still looks a bit like a traditional ran. Others we're also talking largely about there is this underlying procurement problem and the system integration problem, the procurement problem from a point of view of well what is it different that I'm buying? But also the procurement thing from a sort of yes, if I buy it as an integrated whole, which kind of negates the whole reason for openness, I buy this as an integrated whole, I get insurance, I get validation from a single vendor. If I buy it from multiple vendors, put it together myself, it suddenly becomes my problem. I may not have the skills, I may not have the capability to do that one. So some of the discussion I think was a lot about this one where this responsibility sits, how do we are still in a situation where we haven't quite got that

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (03:21):
Story. Right. Okay. Do you think that's kind of the story of the bigger, broader picture? I mean if you had that discussion in another market next week, do you think it would be any different at all? I think it comes down to

Francis Haysom, Appledore Research (03:41):
The Open RAN has become a kind of procurement tick box rather than where it's original. We talked on the panel about this sort of, has the original vision diverged from the reality aware and I think the honest answer is yes it has. The vision was very much of innovation that you would use. The fact that you would opened up the various interfaces in the ran itself as a means of innovation. You might get better spectral efficiency, you might get better controller algorithms, you may get better scheduling algorithms for private networks versus public networks rather than everybody kind of uses the same algorithms. All of the opportunities is there. But the business case of how would I innovate that thing or how important is entering a new private networks market or a particular IOT device, I think that connection is not yet being made within the industry or it's not being made at a point that says, yes, this is a way in which me adopting some of the complexity of multiple vendors has an endpoint which says I gain more revenue, I gain a better credibility in the market, a better network that it's really hard to make that case.

(05:08):
Whereas that was there in the vision at the beginning, but we're kind of missing that now.

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (05:13):
So probably this time next year things will have kind of almost matured even further and they'll just be a bunch of open RAN deployments, but with a single vendor. And although I think I did hear one of the speakers say, but at least I'll have the option if I want to swap out some radios or add some radios or swap out the SMO in the future I can. But the likelihood is that

Francis Haysom, Appledore Research (05:41):
The question is what does that do? Why if you are not considering doing it today, what's going to change in a year's time to say yes, I will swap out an SMO. That's a major piece of work you've taken maybe an integrated player's SMO, now you're going to rip it out. All of us in this industry know the sort of calamitous failures of many transformations that are simply a rip and replace that business case.

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (06:09):
I guess maybe that ticks a box as well.

Francis Haysom, Appledore Research (06:11):
It ticks a box in sort of saying, yes, I, I've given myself some diversity. I may be being cynical in that one. I've ticked a box saying, yes, I've got a theoretical escape lane in this one, but the reality is probably you'll never use that escape lane.

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (06:31):
Alrighty, well there we go. Open RAN, wrapped up in a couple of minutes. Well thanks Francis, because that does give us an update on where we are and I think that pretty much encapsulates what we're seeing at the moment in the market. So appreciate you providing us with that update. Thanks very much.

Francis Haysom, Appledore Research (06:50):
That's a pleasure, Ray. Thank you very much.