Guy Daniels, TelecomTV (00:00:10):
This is our final debate of the year. Should six G be part of the telco investment plans? Telcos are understandably keen to focus on 5G, but long-term investment planning means that at some stage we've got to talk realistically about six G, about what's coming next, and we've got to do that sooner rather than later. I've just got a note of my notes here that absolutely covered in water because one of those sparkling water bottles exploded a few minutes ago. But I've got a note from our last debate and it was filled on a last debate on iot who said that I think he said, I'm paraphrasing, every step in G brings a lag to the iot product market. So there's a lot of issues going on here and hopefully we'll get through quite a few of them. So we're going to have a motion obviously, and we're going to have a q and a discussion. But first of all, I'm going to ask one by one our guests to come up and give a three minute expert witness statement starting with David Boswarthick of ETSI, who is the director of strategy and innovation at ETSI. So please, David.

David Boswarthick, ETSI (00:01:11):
Thank you very much, guy. Good afternoon everybody. I hope you're still full of energy, as am I. I have the honor, the privilege of kicking off six G in the GTD, which is a new logo we're going to be running with next year. I'm a standards guy. I've worked in ETSI for 25 years, start off in 3G BP, which has been around for 25 years. So I'm going to defend the standards machine, expecting others in the audience possibly to suggest improvements. So to look at the question, is 60 a part of the telco investment plans? Well, yes it is. It's already happening. It's been happening for four to three years. If you look at what's been happening in the ITU, so please remember that the ITU defined the 10 year cycle. It's not three GP three GP feeds into the 10 year cycle. So if you look at IMT 20, 20 IMT 20, 30, for the past three to three to four years, governments have been investing in what will six G be?

(00:02:12):
What is the triangle spider diagram going to look at where we go from 10 milli seconds of latency down to one millisecond. So there's been a lot of investment, a lot of meetings, a lot of companies going there, investing time and energy. If you look at the number, think of another one. The number of vision documents that land on your inbox every day. 60 vision of this 60 is going to be great use cases, technologies, metaverse, meta, connecting everything to a virtual cyber world. This has been going on for four, three years, two years. A big flurry of vision reports these past weeks. But everybody has been looking, thinking, researching what six G may be talking of research. If you look at what's happening in the research field, Europe is looking at investing hundreds of millions of euros in S-N-S-J-U program, there are a number of projects ongoing.

(00:03:06):
We have phase one, phase two, phase three running over seven to eight years, hundreds of millions of euros being invested by many companies into six G research. So there is investment happening. It's not something that will happen. Also work happening in three GP obviously three GP is standardizing 3G, 4G, 5G, 5G advance, and now six G. So there's already a plan for six G in three GP. We'll start with release 20, continuum release 21. Note that a generation does not define the features deployed. A generation is defined by the releases and releases can be sent out every 18 months. So we don't do a reset every 10 years, it's every 18 months. So what could six G be? There are several voices. It could be evolutionary, a step up from 5G, it could be revolutionary, fantastic technology, or we could do a reset and there's a number of voices out there saying we need to reset whatever happens. I hope that our industry will continue to thrive and that the standards that support them will be around for generations. Thank you very much

Guy Daniels, TelecomTV (00:04:12):
As well. Nicely done. Thank you David. Thank you very much. Nice use of generations at the end. I do approve of that one. Thank you very much. So Anita, let's bring you to the lectern. Our next expert witness is Anita Döhler, who is the CEO of the NGMN alliance.

Anita Döhler, NGMN Alliance (00:04:26):
Yeah, NGMN stands for the next generation Mobile Networks Alliance and we are an operator driven alliance including vendors, academia. So we collaborate on actual current challenges but also setting the requirements for the next generation of mobile networks since many years. So two operators need to invest in six G, and the other question was what is six G and is there an alternative to six G? So as soon as we can define what six G is, we maybe have an answer to what an alternative might be. And David already pointed it out that actually operators started to invest in two six G already four years ago. So that was the time in 2020 when academia, when research institutes started to publish their first visions on six G. And of course, guess what? Operators had to react because even if you maybe disagree with specific points, you need to invest, you need to invest in analysis and resources and learnings from the current now 5G deployments to formulate your position and to collaborate with the ecosystem to ensure that there is value for users and that we also achieve operational efficiencies going forward.

(00:05:49):
So we in NGMN, we already worked on use cases, so it was a very yearly work and of course need to learn from 5G deployments, 5G, we all know it's not even deployed yet. We have a lot of challenges. I even don't want to go into all the challenges we have is 5G because everyone in the audience I think is very well aware of, but there is one thing certain that is that the future will come and future will be here maybe sooner than what we believe will be the case. So we need to invest and we need to analyze further what the users really need, whether we can deploy this and meet the needs with 5G, what actually the gap is to 5G and what is really needed going forward for six G? So we also provided an operator position statement in 23. So where the operators clearly articulated that any need for hardware refreshers need to be optional.

(00:06:51):
So we don't want to have mandatory hardware upgrades. We want to try at least to do incremental innovation with the help of software, the software driven networks we have already in place. And if there is a real gain with regards to user value, with regards to efficiency gains, then of course operators will be willing to invest and we need to collaborate on that. Just this week we provided the first baseline for such comparisons. We released a radio performance assessment framework, which is providing a baseline for performance assessments and deployment criteria. And we will continue to support the industry to provide guidance with regards to frameworks for future networks. Thank you very much.

Guy Daniels, TelecomTV (00:07:40):
Thank you Anita. Yeah, download that report if you haven't already done so. I have thank you. Our next speaker is Mark Gilmour. Mark from chief technology Officer from Connectivitree Europe. I'll say no more. I'm going to leave it there.

Mark Gilmour, Connectivitree (00:07:56):
I've dressed for the occasion. Yes, I believe I hold the record for the shortest and most concise answer ever given on a telecom TV panel. You do? Thank you. But I think conversely, I'm probably also one of the candidates for the longest answer as well, but I think when I looked at this question, should operators be engaged in or invest in six G, I think I could have gone with a short answer, which is yes, but probably not for the reason that one would think. And so I've dressed for the occasion to kind of, I'd like to illustrate my story with an appropriate Christmas theme. So Marley was dead to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that old Marley was dead as a doornail. Now go with me on this. In our retelling of this classic Christmas tale, old Jacob Marley is the old telecom operator and Ebenezer Scrooge is his contemporary. He now said, Scrooge, what do you want with me? You are fettered. Tell me why.

(00:09:21):
So Marley responded, I wear the chain I forged in life. I made it link by link, yard by yard, I girded it out of my own free will. So what is that chain that FETs the operators? Well, it's the 5G chain built link by link, the link of ultra reliable, low latency communications or enhanced mobile enhanced massive machine type communication or millimeter spectrum or remote surgery or autonomous vehicles. Although we did hear a very good use case before this or robot remote shaving in the mountains, nons, standalone, standalone hardware, refresh, pr, marketing, the 5G promise, keeping up with the Jones' networks, the 5G race, all forged by the leadership of development, not necessarily being in the operator domain but being in the hands of vendors, academia, all well-meaning all doing well. So the conclusion is yes, operators should be investing in six G to make sure that they do not create the chains that fetter them. The folly of Jacob Marley was he was about the wrong business. His he efforts and focus was in the wrong place. Scrooge said you were good at business. Business cried the ghost, mankind was my business. Therein lies the insight mankind in our adaption of this tale is the customer and the operator should be the voice for that customer.

Guy Daniels, TelecomTV (00:11:06):
Applause officially the first time a top hat has been worn at the Great Tokyo debate. It's another first for Mark World. Mark, thank you very much. The man with the hardest task of the day is is Geoff Hollingworth. I'm very sorry Geoff, but follow that Geoff is CMO obviously of Rakuten Symphony as you know. Geoff, please,

Geoff Hollingworth, Rakuten Symphony (00:11:31):
I am not sure how to follow Mark's discussion there. I thought actually you were ill sat next to me and you were having to keep warm to build on what Mark described there. If I had one dream of the industry, it would be to focus less on six G and more on 6G. Where 6G are the six remaining customers we have after we finished focusing on a delusional dream called six G, that we hope will happen sometime in the future and close the gap on what already has not been delivered by 5G. And I think we have certain come to Jesus moments as an industry where somehow we are trying to lead with technology and find reasons why people should find that useful. Now we are surrounded by people who value what we do, Colin, that we've just heard needs what we do.

(00:12:59):
But listen to the crispness of his answer. What do you want delivered? I need connectivity all the time. I can overcome shortcomings, but I can't overcome no comings at all. I think the opportunity we have as an industry is to listen to our customers and to almost in a standards process, OTT, our own standards processes. What we need is a connectivity solution that works seamlessly across all technologies that leverages the best technology at the right time. It needs to work across all versions. We stand in a world today where we are connected maybe 20% of the time on 5G, most of the time on 4G, sometimes 3G, two G. Can we embrace reality operators Absolutely need to invest in the future. That future needs to get into an 18 month cadence and listen to what customers need and it needs to be driven less from the vendor side and less from the academic clever side. Geoff, thank you very

Guy Daniels, TelecomTV (00:14:33):
Much indeed. Thank you Geoff. Our next expert witness is Neil McCrae and Neil is here today representing the core network technology group at UKTIN. Over to you Neil.

Neil McRae, UKTIN (00:14:46):
Yeah, but I don't really ever speak for anyone except myself as I'm sure you already know. I couldn't have said that. Some say why six G? Some say why climb a mountain? Some say why fly across the ocean? Some even say for God's sake. Now we've just finished building 5G, I want some wine, some cheese and a bit of sleep. I say we are the digital oxygen for the world at large. We have changed the world in ways none of us could ever imagine. And if we stop what we are doing, people literally riot in the street. And if I compare, if I was to take the journey of all of telecoms and condense it into today's activities, but morning coffee, we had operators routing calls manually by masturbation. We had two G and SMS. By lunchtime we had 4G. And a moment ago we had Greg Wallace on YouTube ending his career. Those are the things that we enable in telecommunications.

(00:16:05):
So my esteemed telecom wizards, bandwidth magicians, esteemed guests and consultants, we need to work together to build six G. And the reason we need to do that, the most important reason if I be more serious for the last part of this talk is 5G was our sports car of connectivity. Six G is the spaceship that will take us anywhere in the world for what this gentleman here said and for what all of us know, we have done an amazing job connecting Apple and Samsung, an amazing job. What we need to connect is humans. And if we are to bank the value of the future, we need to build a network that truly connects humans. But Neil, it's so hard, I'm still having a nap from 5G. Let me tell you, there's a bunch of guys over in California, there's a bunch of guys over in Beijing and they're building compute and AI and other technologies at a pace that would make us absolutely panic. So if we don't build it and if we don't lead this, we will be irrelevant. We won't get to choose what we do and if we don't build it, those that are invested in technology, the guys with the fruit, the guys with the weird logos, they will build it instead of us. So we have no choice. We have to build six G, but we also have to learn from what went wrong in previous Gs. The customer is why we're here and why we need to focus for what they need in six G.

Guy Daniels, TelecomTV (00:17:52):
Neil, thank you very much. Lovely. And our last expert witness of the day, please Itsuma Tanaka who is president and CEO of Doomo Communications Labs Europe, please.

Itsuma Tanaka, Docomo Labs (00:18:06):
Thank you. Hi again. Should everybody invest in six G? And I would say yes. Okay, but let's start with the fact 5G is fragmented. So only a few countries like the United States, China, India, they have the achieved nationwide 5G standalone coverage today and elsewhere. Deployment is uneven and unreliable and interpretability across borders. It's still a significant challenge. And this fragmentation means we are lacking the unified foundation needed for business and solution to scale globally. So consider industry like automotive and heavy equipment, things like smart excavators on construction sites. They connected to optimize efficiency and safety. But those technologies can't thrive in a fragmented ecosystem. And if these countries operate on slightly different versions of 5G different options, if standards and coverage vary, how can these seriously solution scale globally? The answer is they cannot. So this is why think six G is our opportunity to unify and most importantly we now have the experience to make it a success.

(00:19:33):
So the hard lessons we learned during five G's market experiments, try on error testing business models and all the things they have equipped us to avoid repeating mistakes. For instance, in Japan, much above 5G focus has been on experimenting with business model to find what works. And this process has given us critical insights into what doesn't work, enabling us to design 60 G system that better align with the industry requirements. And so today we have clear expectations and defined requirements and stronger collaborations with sectors like automotive, healthcare, logistics to co-create solutions that meet their needs. And this clarity will be the key to ensure six G becomes a global success with six G, we're not just talking about faster speeds or lower latency, we're talking about building seamless, sustainable and consistent global network, whether in your Tokyo, London, such uniformity, it's essential for business to deploy solutions that work everywhere.

(00:20:37):
So let me be blunt, if you are investing only in 5G, now you're already behind the leading edge of innovation has moved on and that will be six G. Therefore I'm calling or urging or even begging, especially the telecom operators here or on the tv. On the online to stand up once again. So that 3G PP is not just a department store of random, let's get back the unified global telecom system in our hands. So in summary, 5G two, fragmented solution to scale for the solution future six G is the chance and the time to invest in six G is now. Thank you,

Guy Daniels, TelecomTV (00:21:17):
Thank you, thank you. What a great collection of diverse views from our expert witnesses. It's absolutely fantastic we've had those we're going to discuss and have a q and a in a moment, but of course we need a motion and we need two gentlemen to argue for and against.

Graham Wilde, BWCS (00:21:37):
Good news for you guy, we have a motion as ever. Okay, the motion is the industry should not shouldn't be planning for six G when it is still struggling to monetize 5G. And I'm speaking for this and Chris is speaking against it. So let me take my feet for the time of the day, right?

(00:22:02):
Okay ladies and gentlemen, in a recent Gallup survey conducted in the United States, 9% of Americans believe that the moon landings were faked. And 19% of Americans believe that the nine 11 attacks were not carried out by Al-Qaeda, but were part of a US state conspiracy. And 30% of Americans believe that Covid was also some kind of state or multinational conspiracy by global elites and not the result of some natural transmission or even an accident in a lab, but a deliberate attempt to sort of manipulate the global population in some way. Now I dunno what you believe, but for me personally, I find those numbers to be surprisingly high until you think that actually that 30% of Americans, what they believe about, I mean they're not necessarily experts, are they in disease transmission. What's perhaps more surprising is that we believe all sorts of shit about our own industry when we're the experts, right?

(00:23:29):
Have we heard it today? We heard about the ridiculous forecast for iot uptake which have not been met and in fact Mark made the case earlier, didn't he? About the well-meaning group of vendors and academics and consultants and so on who are propelling us ever forwards into a next generation of technology and we can't even get the return on investment from the technologies that we've invested in already. My own company, Hutchinson, you would've seen today is merging its operation in the uk three with Vodafone. One of the reasons for that is they would make more money if they put the money they're invested in their mobile network into a bank account and just sat on the interest they would get more money. We would get more money than investing in our 5G rollout. Okay, so clearly you have to vote for this special. Ladies and gentlemen, it's the last one of the day. And let me say just this other thing, it's too all this is the decider. Vote green when the time comes. Thank you very much.

Chris Lewis, Lewis Insight (00:24:44):
Well, do you think it'd be bad to play the Blindy card at this point?

Graham Wilde, BWCS (00:24:50):
You play it, vote for the blind, go for it, go.

Chris Lewis, Lewis Insight (00:24:54):
Or I could I claim the wrong things in face. So when we pull all of these things together, and what I love about the great tel debate is we get people in the room obviously with vast knowledge of what's going on. What we can never do is truly get all of the different perspectives out in front of everybody. What's happened with 5G has been frankly a disaster from the point from where it was supposed to take us, similar to iot, that it was supposed to rapidly accelerate us through. Everyone's supposed to do different things. We haven't still do the basic things. Probably might even have been at the first Teleco debate guy. We talked about 5G and I said I would love to see the industry not just talk about the cellular standard, but put it into context with the fixed network, with wifi, with other communications and actually deliver something which would actually address requirements in a uniform requirement.

(00:25:53):
To go back to comments, just made secure reliable connectivity ubiquitously. So I think I'm going to repeat what I said 10 years ago, which is probably about the right length of cycle that we have as an industry. Frankly, the way the financial community viewers, they think we're commodity stock anyway. So we need to take as the city would say, a haircut, a cold bath, and actually refocus the efforts, but not just around cellular. We have to put communications as we heard in the iot debate into the context of how people and things and industry and society want to use it. If we're going to bill all those things correctly, as Neil pointed out, if we don't build it in that uniform approach to everything, we will get outpaced. As I use my analogy with the underground platform this morning, we'll be bypassed. And this is not just about technology, this is about the culture, it's also about government and regulation.

(00:26:50):
It comes down to every country, every city and how we want to deliver the services that support society, business and the individuals. So we do need to focus on six G, I'm sorry that we've screwed up 5G. We probably did listen too much to what the equipment companies were talking to us about, but in order to actually emphasize and build that position where we do become part of everything that everyone does in the future, we need to take that cold bath, take that haircut and invest for six G. Thank you very much and don't worry about the Blindy card.

Guy Daniels, TelecomTV (00:27:23):
Thank you, thank you. Thank you Chris. Thank you Graham. Well this is a tough one to hope you decide. We are going to open up to questions and we're going to have a discussion. I have about a hundred questions here and really strong opinions, but you don't want to hear from me. We want to hear from you. So anyone who hasn't asked a question today gets first dibs a question opening up to a newcomer. Oh, you've all asked questions. Anyone new? Anyone new? Who wants to ask a question? Yeah, Andrew hasn't asked a question at all this year. Come on Andrew.

Andrew Coward, IBM (00:27:57):
So I think this is a really interesting topic and for what we decide or say today probably won't make that much difference frankly because I think it's the boards of the telcos and more importantly their investors who get to decide this. So my question for the panel we have today, what appetite do they think the boards of telcos have to make the investment in six G regardless of how good the arguments that we hear today are?

Guy Daniels, TelecomTV (00:28:23):
Oh, appetite then who wants to go first on what's the appetite like? Neil, come on.

Neil McRae, UKTIN (00:28:27):
So I dunno if you remember a place I used to work at the CEO went to Mobile World Congress and said Case for 5G was really hard and almost freaked out the entire industry. But he was right. I know I wrote that case. The only way we were able to get that case over the line was to effectively panic the business that we would lose customers. And actually I don't think that was a made up panic. I think it was a real panic. And I think the same thing will be true here. If I go into any of the boards and say, Hey look, if you don't invest in this, you will lose customers because someone is going to invest in it. So I think that makes it a little bit easier. What I think we need to do though is as I said in the speech and pretty much what I think everybody said is we need to be realistic about how we go about this and where we go about it. So a race to build the top 50 cities in the UK is meaningless. Where would you build six G? Where would you start? Where would it be different that would enable us to fix some of the mistakes of the past? I did a presentation at Small Cells Forum about how I would do it, which was actually to focus on smaller communities where you can bring the value out of building communities. So I think when the time's right there won't be an issue in the board, I'm sure of course they'll bear, they want to have a sensible case, but I think they'll roll with it pretty quickly.

Andrew Coward, IBM (00:30:00):
Isn't that argument saying that it's a bagga thy neighbor argument? So if I have a deeper pocket as a telco, I'm going to outspend my competitors in order to win customers, I'm going to have that little six G logo.

Neil McRae, UKTIN (00:30:13):
No, no, this isn't about winning customers anymore. This is about keeping the customers that you've got. It's a survival strategy. And if you're not in that, let me be really clear. Hey, if one of the three now here in the UK says, oh, we're not going to participate, woo-hoo, build faster. So I don't think there's any danger. Technology moves on and to say that we're going to freeze things for 10 years, it's just not realistic in any kind of situation. Name one industry that's successfully done something like that. Any industry that did do it isn't around anymore. Is this an easy business case? For sure not, but is there a survival business case there for a 20 billion pound company like Vodafone or bt? Absolutely there is.

Guy Daniels, TelecomTV (00:31:00):
Thanks very much Neil. I've got a couple more responses. So Mark, I'll come to you first and then we'll go across to Geoff.

Mark Gilmour, Connectivitree (00:31:05):
I think it's a question of what that board needs to invest in and I think if it's another hardware refresh, I think that's kind of the point I was trying to make in terms of the question I think is operators do need to get involved in the investment in six G, but it needs to be an investment in resource and in mind mindset and in knowledge share and knowledge transfer because operators do have access to the customer. They are the interface to that customer and I think they need to bring that strong message back in and that's the investment that happens now so that when that time comes to make that business case of whatever six G looks like, actually it's a fairly straightforward investment case. Our industry will tear itself apart If we do the keep up with the Joneses network approach to investment, it'll kill itself.

Guy Daniels, TelecomTV (00:32:12):
Thanks Mark. We'll go across to Geoff and we'll come along later. But Geoff first,

Geoff Hollingworth, Rakuten Symphony (00:32:16):
Yeah, it is in agreement with Neil and Mark. We have a prisoner problem in the industry. Nobody at the board level can not invest in this next thing because if they don't, they're really almost exiting the status quo. But we're having a conversation here about investing in six G, but none of us in this room have a clue what six G is. We don't know. So how can you possibly be intelligent in investing in it? I don't know. Neil's comment about our challenges in industry of not being relevant in five to 10 years time is I hope we understand is more real now than it has been since the nineties. I would say what we need to be taking is investment decisions about what we need to make happen in the next 18 to 24 months. And those need to be based on what people really need and on the basics of what networks need to do. And then we need to empower Colin in the automobile industry to build on that in the most simple efficient way possible. So I am really frightened for the industry at the moment because at the moment it's getting driven. Six G is happening, but it's not being happening. Somebody has to pay for it. It's not being driven from a commercial operator perspective, it's being driven from exactly the same base 5G was driven so it might happen. Thanks Geoff. Itsuma over to you.

Itsuma Tanaka, Docomo Labs (00:33:52):
Thank you. Yep. So the answer really depends on what kind of investor you're talking about, but if you want to stay on the cutting edge of innovation, there's no option but to basically invest on this. I looked at the countries I mentioned, they are doing a lot of experiments. They are ahead in the race, maybe they're closing in to find the answer to how to make it right, but then they're going to dominate the business globally and especially if you are not from those countries and if you want to stay ahead in the race, there's no option. Yeah. So it's about how far in the future look ahead, you can look ahead and that's the reason why investors should also, I mean consider this opportunity, this add opportunity. Thank You.

Guy Daniels, TelecomTV (00:34:45):
Thanks very much. And Anita also, your members are heavily invested in this area. What are your observations?

Anita Döhler, NGMN Alliance (00:34:51):
Yes, of course. I mean with regards to our board members who represent CTOs, c tios and also partly R and D directors, of course they speak about six G, that's the job. But globally of course there are also voices in different board of director setups when C-level states that they even don't want to hear the word six G because they are so much of course involved in making five GA reality and also involved in achieving a monetization and return on investment and it's natural. But going back to the question, what type of investment, and I mean I partly can only echo what was already said, it is not yet about hardware investments at the moment. We need investments into intellectual work. So we need investments into analysis, into research, into collaboration to understand better the other industry needs, user needs, what can be delivered with 5G advanced.

(00:35:55):
And we need, and I can also only echo what Summa said, we need also the mobile network operators to be active in standardization. And that's something which is my personal concerns since many, many years because I used to work also in all different kinds of jobs, also deployment, but also in r and d and historically always those who are not directly contributing to this fiscal year's bottom line. They are questions in their existence and I think that's on one side, so the meaning of their existence as questions and I think on one side it's completely understandable if I have trouble to survive today and tomorrow it's very difficult to think about the future, but there is no alternative to that. So we need to invest into future. And this is why I personally believe that we need to overcome this chicken egg problem and we need to also have resources working on future topics and we need also to invest in resources with regards to the right skills. So we had yesterday the day about AI and telco and I mean I was also in delivery jobs and if I hear all our discussions and I'm part of that, of course I really wonder who shall deliver this. I mean there are all the developers, the people with the right skills, especially being a European citizen also in Europe who will make this really happen and a reality and we really need to work together. So it's not something one operator can do in an isolated way. A vendor also cannot achieve this in an isolated way.

Guy Daniels, TelecomTV (00:37:43):
Thanks very much Anita. David, do you want to come in as well?

David Boswarthick, ETSI (00:37:45):
A lot of what I wanted to say has been said, but just to sort of conclude on that, it's not about investing in spectrum radio masks and hardware today. It's about investing the study and what will we need to deploy in six years time. So I don't want to open up the question, what is six G? But we need to investigate that area. We need to look at what is going to come, what do we need to come. It's not about terror. Subter, Hertz, Riz Isaac, those are building block technologies. They're wonderful. They've come out research labs, they're fantastic. But that isn't going to give the service which will give to our customers or to your customers in 2030. We need to think what needs to be achieved in 2030 and then make sure we design it. So invest in the intellectual research, collaborate as always. And again, definitely get the operators back and driving. When I started standards 25 years ago, it was France Telecom, British Telecom, the good national telecom operators. We've moved away from that. So the direction of the industry has slightly changed. So some things to be done now.

Guy Daniels, TelecomTV (00:38:50):
Thanks very much. Thanks so much everyone. There's a lot more questions that we want to get to, but let's unleash the Dean next, the microphone in the back corner,

Dean Bubley, Disruptive Analysis (00:38:58):
Unleash the dean. I like that. So along with Geoff and then also William Webb run thing called six G Reset, which I'm really pleased to have this panel here to essentially look at how we frame the questions and the purpose of six G and how we get something. But one of the ones here, which is on the investment side, I don't think we've really thought about, and for me as well as telco investors, I wonder if there are others going to be investing in six G either with telcos in the same way in the fixed landscape you've got private equity funds, co-investing with operators in fiber networks, but also we've got private networks, we've got governments military, we've got satellite companies, we've perhaps got tower companies. So there's actually a lot of others who may be able to take up the slack on investment if telcos don't do it and it might change the shape of the six G sector. So I'm wondering what the panel think about that. But actually before I had Neil, you said the mobile industries led to things that people couldn't have imagined. You missed the second half of that, which is vendors on fire off the shoulder of O ran and C-band glittering in the dark near the airport.

Neil McRae, UKTIN (00:40:19):
If we had four minutes I would've got to open ran,

Dean Bubley, Disruptive Analysis (00:40:23):
But I'd like to pass it back to the panel there. Is it other investors as well?

Guy Daniels, TelecomTV (00:40:27):
Thanks so much Dean. Great question. Who'd like to kick off with this one?

Neil McRae, UKTIN (00:40:32):
I mean look, investors invest in vendors. So I think what they've got a part to play, I think the challenge if you've ever stood in front of one of these investors is show me the money. And I think all today what we've heard is we don't know how to show that money. So I think with fiber, with infrastructure assets, you've always got the fiber, you've always got the infrastructure and most infrastructure companies think, well we can just sell that on. And so far, at least if I think of the alt nets in the uk, exactly what's happened right with wireless and with things that are with spectrum that are a bit harder to understand, a bit less certain about actually do we own this or does off come on it or does it? I think that's a bit more of a challenge to get them to come in. I think in terms of some aspects of the infrastructure like towers neutral hosts, subways, et cetera. I mean I think we've got that happening already with what Baldwin do. I mean they're effectively run by a pension fund and they invest and actually are doing a pretty decent job. So yes, I think there's that skill. One thing that does worry me though, which is fragmentation,

(00:41:46):
Right? So you talked about military and stuff like that, that scares the hell out of me. And the reason it does is I've worked with a lot of neutral host companies and they're like, hey, we've built this great neutral host plugin and you plug in and the quality's like whoa unplug. Basically how do you in a heterogeneous multi-network environment, how do you really make that work for mobile operators in a way that gives them confidence with their customers? And bear in mind that at least most of the markets that are representing here, your missions to not lose customers number one mission really. So if you aren't able to manage quilt, that patchwork quilt well and I don't think we are today, then that to me doesn't feel like the right path and all the more reason why mobile operators need to start investing and putting the time into the next generation.

Guy Daniels, TelecomTV (00:42:48):
Thanks very much Neil. We'll hand over to Mark.

Mark Gilmour, Connectivitree (00:42:51):
I'm not sure if there's a direct answer to your question Dean, but it kind of builds on what Neil was saying about that patchwork quilt. I do think there is an opportunity within the six G era to kind of sort out that patchwork quilt and that heterogeneous network he net that doesn't exist. It's fragmented across radio access technologies, three gpp, non three gpp or the thing. And the big question there is whether cellular can work with and properly step into collaboration with other access technologies, wireless or fixed or to actually create that always on connectivity that Colin mentioned. And I really do think that's a great opportunity that we have and is probably the loudest voice that we get from a customer base, whether it's a consumer customer base or an enterprise customer base. The biggest voice that we get is please just give me connectivity that works. And I really think we have an opportunity to do that, but that is really, really difficult because it's going to be stepping on a whole load of toes that currently are quite happy in their lanes. But I don't think that that's sustainable longer term beyond 2030 and beyond.

Guy Daniels, TelecomTV (00:44:26):
Thank you. Mark, any more comments from the panel on this question? Alternative investment? Otherwise we'll open it up because there's quite a few more.

Geoff Hollingworth, Rakuten Symphony (00:44:33):
I'll just quickly, I think the question that's raised is who is six G really full? And we've fallen into this weird almost dysfunctional relationship where the G seemed to be purely to get deployed by mobile network operators that exist. No one else uses our technology anywhere else, which is interesting. They're delivering the same capabilities quite often. So the first question is why? And then from a mobile network operator and industry point of view, why are we so adverse to these other technologies where if they could help us solve problems where we have gaps in providing seamless connectivity? I think the market, me as a customer, I have seamless connectivity, I just manually orchestrate it. No one else will do it for me now if somebody, yeah, but if somebody could take care of that and make it more seamless, I will. The analogy is valet parking in Dallas, you go to a restaurant in Dallas, people will queue up to have their car valet parked and literally you can park around the corner two minutes away and walk. It's faster when you come out to walk to your car than wait for valet parking. But the great thing about humans is that we really like convenience and simplicity.

(00:45:59):
That's the end of my analogy.

Guy Daniels, TelecomTV (00:46:03):
That's a good place of end. Right? Should we move it onto because more questions here. Let's go at the center. Who's got the mic?

Francis Haysom, Appedore Research (00:46:08):
Hi there. One of the things I think about generations is that to date they've largely had three components that are very well matched. So if you look at it, if I separate them into hardware, software and the overall vision of the generation, so if you look at GSM, you look at 3G and you look at 4G, they have a very clear generational aspects with 5G. You've really had, or we should be getting to the stage where software is effectively decoupled. It's a lot of aspects of software. Software is a very different process from a hardware process and similarly the vision for what six G can be is to some extent it's now lots of possible use cases and all the rest of it. Would we be better in terms of our investment plans if we're much clearer about decoupling these three aspects? There's a hardware aspect to do with spectrum hardware, radios, et cetera. There's a software thing. Software is not a generational thing, it's a constant evolutionary thing. And there's a vision thing which is really how are we relevant in the future? And they're very different things and we're trying to tie these into one thing called a generation six G seven, GA hundred G, whatever it is, do we benefit from decoupling these things?

Guy Daniels, TelecomTV (00:47:31):
Okay, thanks so much Francis. I'm just going to add to that question before I hand it over because at our recent NextGen telco infra summit, one of our guests brought this up and I wrote it down here, they're suggesting that cloud infrastructure layers are no longer generational specific and network management layer going the same way. So there's a decoupling there as well. So this is interesting question. So anyone want to take up Francis's question?

Itsuma Tanaka, Docomo Labs (00:47:54):
Yep. Thank you for the question to answer about splitting hardware software. I would say it's already happening already. I'm talking about the fertilizer platform, CNFV and in three GPP network itself, it's just software defined and there could be even more activities around it to progress for further decoupling, but it's already there. We are already doing it and they can hardware apart. How we run the telecom networks on the virtual environment is showing evolution independent from the telecom evolution as well. So I think it's already happening. I'd say maybe not really answer your question, but yeah, thank you.

Neil McRae, UKTIN (00:48:44):
I think we're about to go through a reality check of how hard software is. So if I look at one of the day jobs, we build a chip that punts packet super quick, that's all it does. Every intelligence to the network runs as an application. And if I think about the millions of lines of code in the application and actually we're on ip, this is relatively straightforward stuff compared to radio. I think the cost of suppose a new capability suddenly becomes available. We have to go back port all the software. I think that could be equally as difficult as having to spin a new chip or spin new hardware and having gone from telco to working in a couple of vendors now the software part of that is as hard as the hardware and it costs as much to do and I think we are kidding ourselves on to some extent if we can translate all of that into software and for that to come at a different price or a free price. When I look at all the economics of how you build these devices, I don't see that being a reality. So is splitting them in terms of understanding the capabilities you need helpful potentially in terms of scale beyond that, I'm less convinced about it making that big a difference, right?

Graham Wilde, BWCS (00:50:08):
Can I chip in from the other end? So coming up that question a slightly different way. If you go back to the presentations that people gave about 5G and why that was better than 4G, they said, but primarily it's three things, right? It's faster, it supports massive density of devices and it supports very low latency. Well, the massive density of devices is part of the kind of collective lunacy I was just referring to a few minutes ago. We don't have that, right? There's no demand for that at the moment. The low latency comes into things like Phil Skipper's control of drones, but for the average person and the average business, it doesn't make any difference. So you come down to the difference between 5G and 4G for the average customer is it's faster if you're on a good connection, all other things being equal, it's faster. Why is it faster? Because primarily there's more spectrum available primarily. So you could make even more spectrum available to make it even faster to support the kind of insane computing things that Neil was referring to, which are happening in Silicon Valley and so on. Just by adding even more spectrum to 5G, right? Just make it faster, put more spectrum in. You don't need all this other shit, right? Just make it faster.

Guy Daniels, TelecomTV (00:51:36):
That is not to influence anyone's voting by the way. That's just not independent, independent motion. Absolutely. Thanks Graham. Any more comments on this one? Otherwise we'll get another question in. Geoff?

Geoff Hollingworth, Rakuten Symphony (00:51:47):
I think I'd just like to tap down the standard. I think we've had standard creep six G is standardizing or energy is standardizing a network? Can we just get back to basics about what a network, a good network needs to deliver in terms of performance KPIs, in terms of operational simplicity and in terms of integration with other technologies. I don't understand why we keep having these moonshot use cases that lead us down these paths, but as an industry we don't invest anything in business reinvention to address it. Technology is not an answer, it's a tool. So I think we need to just come back to basics and then within there you have hardware soft dial and we are no different from any other industry at that point.

Guy Daniels, TelecomTV (00:52:34):
Thanks Geoff. Okay, should we open up to another question? One more in the middle I think. Oh, there we go. Thank you. The light shining my face.

Audience Question (00:52:42):
What Geoff and Mark and Chris and Dean to an extent were hinting at or driving towards. It seemed to me, and Colin actually what you said about we want always connected were your words, Colin is this idea that somehow, federate might be the wrong word, but there'd be a way to interrelate networks so that they provide connectivity all the time. Is there any realistic prospect of six G being that kind of the one G to rule them all or will it be a kind of separate, I'm not going to say esoteric, but in my mind slightly esoteric mobile standard which addresses certain use cases at certain times. Where is it going? I mean is this an artificial conflation of what we really need and six G is at the heart of this question?

Neil McRae, UKTIN (00:53:34):
I think. I mean that goes back to Geoff's point. These aren't technological issues. These are how businesses work together. What I've seen of six G standards or six G proof of concepts, they're not fixing that issue. So if that issue is important, if a hundred percent connectivity is important, now's the time to bang your drum and ask for it. Because if you don't do it right now, you're not going to get it. But so what I see right now, and I mentioned this, I see Huawei literally trailblazing massively huge investment fair play to them. They're a very smart company, but they're driving it because in China they've built 5G, they need to sell something next year. And that is they're speaking with their customers and actually what their customers want, fairly straightforward. So I think if we want something different to that, then I think we need to shout out loud now.

Guy Daniels, TelecomTV (00:54:30):
Thanks Neil. Come to David next. David,

David Boswarthick, ETSI (00:54:32):
It was just to say industry makes the standards so et C3 GP, we are here to enable our members to make the standards they need, but that's the important thing. Make the standards you need. If you feel the standards machine isn't working, change it. If you want it to be altered, contribute. If you want to see prioritization, bring a contribution to a meeting. But I've seen a lot of fragmentation happening. Industry groups other for and resources are very limited. So this investment, can we invest in human being in time, in effort, maybe avoid fragmentation of resources. Try and focus on the essentials and contribute where you want to see the change, be the change that you want to see. Don't just say, oh, it's broken and it'll never work. Six G will happen. There will be an icon on the phone in 2030 saying six G. We don't know what it will be, but you will decide what that is. So come and contribute and if you want us to change, we will change.

Neil McRae, UKTIN (00:55:27):
Actually, can I just take hands up? If you're involved in standards in this room, there's a signal, right? There's a signal. So hey, don't come next year and say, well, I didn't get this. Well, you could have gone get involved open. He'll tell you where to go.

David Boswarthick, ETSI (00:55:43):
Speak to David afterwards, just to come back. Take media, press. No, no cash only just to say I'm sure that all of your companies are involved just maybe not in your universe, but the amount of investment that industry makes in standards is enormous. We just want to make sure that that is invested in the right place.

Guy Daniels, TelecomTV (00:56:02):
Come to Geoff and then Anita.

Geoff Hollingworth, Rakuten Symphony (00:56:04):
Yeah, very, very quickly. I think your question was great, Andrew. You said a statement that just sent shivers up my back with one G to rule them all. I think that frightens me because again, it's not about one network like being the superior network, it's about making the network equally easy for other industries to incorporate into what they need. I truly believe the automotive industry needs to come up with what works for them versus the maritime industry versus the mining industry. And we're trying to solve too much and make every other industry work like a telco. And guess what they don't.

Audience Question (00:56:44):
I didn't really knew. I meant, as you described, needs interface service.

Guy Daniels, TelecomTV (00:56:51):
Anita?

Anita Döhler, NGMN Alliance (00:56:51):
Yeah, personal comment. I'm not sure a customer needs a 60 icon in the phone because the customer just needs that, the service that be delivered. But yeah, seamless connectivity is part of course also of the vision we have and the position statement. Personally, I'm a bit surprised about the lack of innovation appetite hearing here because I think yes, connectivity, seamless connectivity is really important and we need to get the basics. And we have done this for many, many years already in the industry. But I'm personally really keen to also work in an industry which enables new use cases, which connects the unconnected. I think we need to have a bit more appetite and to just provide connectivity together with partners. Yeah,

Guy Daniels, TelecomTV (00:57:40):
I'll come across you Mark in a second, but personally I wouldn't mind seeing a six G icon on my phone because last week, the first time in ages, I had a G icon on my phone. And I'm not telling you what the network was, but I wasn't very impressed.

Mark Gilmour, Connectivitree (00:57:53):
Mark, I suppose coming towards the end, the end of my narrative, the res scoping of the Christmas Carol was that Scrooge Scrooge was redeemed at the end of it. And I wouldn't want us to come away at the end of this event feeling a little negative on this. Actually Scrooger was redeemed because of the choices he made as a result of the intervention that Marley got involved. And I think we've got an opportunity to do that right now and to steer it as David said, in the right way that our customers and the industry needs.

Guy Daniels, TelecomTV (00:58:39):
Thanks, Mark. Two comments and then we've got to wrap it up. But Geoff first?

Geoff Hollingworth, Rakuten Symphony (00:58:43):
Yeah, just quickly. I agree with the need for innovation. I think there's a huge amount of innovation we need to do directly in what we do. So the application of AI to improve interference metrics, to get 30% more out of existing spectrum, the amount of new technologies to simplify the operations of very complicated networks to make them more cost effective and faster. I think they're the innovations that we as an industry need to do first and let the other industries innovate about their other solutions.

Guy Daniels, TelecomTV (00:59:16):
Great, thank you much, Itsuma.

Itsuma Tanaka, Docomo Labs (00:59:18):
Quickly, two things. Industry like automotive industry, they need a very higher redundancy. So it's like a mix of different access or even carrier level redundancy as well. But also integration is a big part of six G. And I think my last thing is six G will be really successful, an even number generation.

Guy Daniels, TelecomTV (00:59:41):
We're going to get a happy ending after all. Yes. Fantastic. What a way to end. We do have to end the discussion today. Now we've got to continue this online in the new year or something. So you're all invited back to that. But before we wrap up today, we must vote on the motion. And the motion is the industry should not be planning for six G when it's still struggling to monetize 5G. So get your paddle pros in the air, activate them. If you want to go with grim, who's saying for the motion or Chris, it was against the motion vote. Now come on. Come. Oh, that's overwhelmingly against this. Look, we're wrapping you up now. Thank you very much everybody. Thanks to the team for staging this. There's a lot of work goes into these events and it is really appreciated. And thank you to our online audience for staying with us and sending in your comments and doing the polls. Thank you very much. Also to our sponsors obviously, we really appreciate your support and to everyone, the panelists, everyone in the room who's attended today.