Guy Daniels, TelecomTV (00:00:10):
Hello everyone. Welcome back to the great Telco Debate. Hello, hello, hello. Welcome back. We're going to start our afternoon sessions now, so please get your teas and coffees, make your way in from the break room area, find your place, take a seat, get your notebook out. Phone's on silent. Thank you very much. Still got a few people coming in. So while we do that, I'd just like to welcome you all back. Thanks for attending in person and to our online audience as well. Thank you very much for rejoining us for our live stream. And don't forget we're recording all of this and it will be available on demand probably from next week. We're going to show a quick reminder of our agenda as to where we are on the agenda. Obviously half of the agenda is now gone. The agenda on the right is still to come.

(00:00:58):
So we have a couple of sessions. We've got two cracking debates for you there. Plus also you'll notice that we are talking cars fireside chat 1540. We're going to talk cars with Jaguar Land Rover, J-L-R, and we're going to really ask, is the automotive sector really a killer use case for 5G, let alone six G? And you know what we're going to find out later. And then we do have at the end of the day, we have a six G session for you. It's the very first six G session we have had. Yes, you asked for it. We are delivering. Don't come crying to us afterwards if you don't like what was said. But first of all, we are going to hand over to my colleague Ray Le Maistre, who is right at this minute typing his final amendments and coming up onto the stage because Ray is going to whip you into a frenzy with all the latest from DSP leaders, Ray.

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (00:01:53):
Okay, thanks guy. By the way, I looked up the definition of the word frenzy and I think you might be overselling this segment, but we'll see. So a year ago, Atlass year's great telco debate. We un unveiled the DSP Leaders Council, which brings together industry experts, innovators, and disruptors who have generously given their time to sharing their insights and expertise by participating in surveys and research that will help them to inform telecom TV's DSP leaders reports, our digital summits events, and our editorial programming in general, the number of counselors has built during the year and I'm glad to say that we have now reached nearly 100 and I think we're going to see them shortly. And you have a number of our counselors here, so I'd just like to thank them for their efforts during the past year. Now also about a year ago we started producing our DSP leaders reports.

(00:02:58):
Many but not all of which are based on our industry surveys and some of which are based on surveys conducted exclusively with the DSP leaders council members. Now the reports which are purely editorial in nature and free for anybody to download from the telecom TV website have proven to be a success. We have had thousands of downloads during the past year and some of our survey results graphics have even been used by speakers at other industry events. You can see the nature of the reports here as I scroll through them. As you can see, we've covered a broad range of topics that are closely aligned with our online summits, our telecom TV content channels, and well just hot industry topics. Basically, AI of course had to feature our next report, which is due to hit the digital streets next week is focused on ai, native telco strategies.

(00:04:02):
For this report, we conducted a survey with network operator staff only and we received responses from more than 60 telco executives from all over the world. And I'm going to give you a sneak preview of the results that I found particularly interesting. So you can see that up here on the screen. We asked our telco respondents, do you believe your role is under threat due to the increasing use and influence of ai? And as you can see, 80% of the respondents don't feel like their position is under threat. And maybe it's just me, but I have to admire the optimism of our respondents here because only a couple of people are looking over their shoulder at ai. Now of course, the devil is in the detail, what jobs do these respondents have? But I can tell you it's a pretty broad sweep of job titles.

(00:04:55):
And I can also tell you that about half of the respondents that we surveyed also believe that the increasing use of AI across their companies will directly lead to headcount reductions but just not impacting them. So they feel pretty protected, but feel that AI will lead to some job cuts. So the results of this survey are pretty interesting. This is just one of about 15, 16 questions we asked. So I urge you to keep an eye out for the report next week. What about 2025 where we have reports lined up on topics such as satellite to smartphone connectivity, AI in the RAN cloud, native telco strategies, network APIs, next gen telco infrastructure, and much more the kind of stuff that you would expect from the telecom TV crew. And of course we're always open to feedback. So if there are any topics that you think that we should be covering in our reports in 2025 and beyond, then please do let us know.

(00:05:57):
You know where to find us. And finally, I just want to remind you of the annual event around which nearly all of our other activities pivot. And that is the DSP Leaders World Forum in 2025. This will once again be held in Windsor just west of Peter Airport and it'll be held on the third and 4th of July. This will be the seventh DSP leaders world four. And the first was held in 2019. It really is a fantastic couple of days and it's well worth being there in person. The industry networking opportunities really are incredible. So that's next year. But first we still have a lot of great telco debating to get through. Our next debate is on 5G IO ot. So can we please have our expert witnesses come up to the stage please and of course Graham and Chris as well to present the motion while they come up. Please give them a round of applause.

(00:07:12):
Got it? Yeah, good boy, Farley. Okay, so I'm not sure that there's been an IOT specific debate at the Great Telco debate before, but over the years I've noticed particularly that we introduced one topic and very often from the audience the debate actually morphs around iot. So this year we've got this session will 5G Fuel the Renaissance of Telco iot. We're going to find out what is the future for telco iot after some mixed experiences from developing and delivering basic IO OT connectivity. Is there a future for next generation telco iot services? What do enterprises want from Telco iot and how is this going to shape partnerships and the ecosystem And also what will be the impact of 5G red cap? We're going to find out hopefully from during the course of the next hour or so. So we've got four witnesses here today. So as usual, we're going to hear from our witnesses first before we get to the motion. So our first witnesses, Sam Bao, he's deputy head of the UK unit at China Mobile International. Sam, three minutes is yours. Thank you.

Sam Bao, China Mobile International (00:08:30):
Thank you guys. Good afternoon. So from China Mobile, most of you should be aware of the company, but if you don't, just a couple of figures just for context. So we have a billion subscribers to date over billing activities and revenues. 1 trillion RB is about a hundred million hundred billion pounds. So this is sort of a company background. So what we do in this iot space, we have a specialized company called C China Mobile iot. So specialize in the IOT business. So now the company developing the communication chip for the 5G connectivity as well as the, we have research institutions for standardizing the 5G standards. So for example, the red cup release 5G release, 17 five, advanced five release 18. So these are the protocol that China Mobile has been heavily involved in this development. So together with this iot company as well as the deployment of the 5G base stations across country, we have many sort of applications have been deployed across the countries.

(00:09:55):
So related to iot and just a couple of examples seems like near shore fish farms, power grid IOTs for the 5G for the power grid monitoring. So these sort of just couple of very simple applications. So what I'm representing from China Mobile International, what we hear today is trying to bridge those, the tried and arrows we have made in China and experiences in China trying to bridge that to the community outside as well as sort of experiences use cases outside the China to our group, see how we can together with the community telco, telco community to develop this IOT for the telco. So here I am. Thank you.

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (00:11:01):
Thank you very much Sam. Our next expert witness is Sandeep Raithatha. He is head of strategy innovation and 5G iot market development at VMO2 business. So Sandeep floor is yours.

Sandeep Raithatha, VMO2 (00:11:18):
Great. So it's fantastic to see IOT really as a topic at the great telco debate today. And with so much focus we've had a whole discussion on artificial intelligence, APIs, platforms, IOT was often once hailed the next big thing but sometimes it can be overshadowed. And so I think it's first really key we reflect on where we've got to iot as well. And so let's be honest, those of us who have been in the industry for a while must all remember those bold predictions of those 50 billion devices connected by 2020. I'm sure some of you can remember that and reflecting on that with any new technology and any new trend, there's always high expectations, but in reality as an industry we've not seen those billions of devices connected to date yet. But I think when you reflect on the evolution of M two M to complex IOT solutions and ecosystems, in my view, there's still some impressive work that's been done over the last five or 10 years.

(00:12:11):
And lemme share a little bit about what Virgin Media has been doing as well. So at Virgin Media O2, we've made some investments to enable iot at scale. That includes rolling out LTM to 95% of our population coverage. So that enables iot across the country. We've also been connecting millions of smart meters and really helping make a difference to how you consume your energy at home to then working with a whole range of sectors, whether that's transport or healthcare, helping organizations operate more efficiently and effectively by gathering data, analyzing that data, and then making critical actions. But I think it's really important to take all those lessons learned and the challenges we've had with iot and looking ahead and whilst 5G standalone can present some really interesting innovative opportunities that's really critical. We learn from the past as well. I think there might be opportunities with things like network slicing and transformative use cases where you could take broadcast video quality streaming those at live events and busy environments or the evolution of 5G with 5G red cap and a range of new devices and sensors that will come online, whether that's industrial sensors, video surveillance, or smart variables as well.

(00:13:15):
But when you think about the technology, it's really important to understand the end-to-end solution and it's just no longer about connectivity, but it's about the entire ecosystem. And when you reflect back on iot to date, one of the challenges has been that fragmentation in the network and that fragmentation has caused challenges. If you think about the availability of IOT devices and in turn the cost of those devices, it makes it really tricky for large businesses to deploy IOT at scale. So we've got to really learn from that as well. And then when I reflect working closely with enterprises, customers are really looking for a solution that seamlessly integrates into their operations, delivers real true actionable insights and addresses, very unique operational challenges as well. So I think to conclude, I believe there is a future in iot but only redefine this evolving ecosystem and really focus on value driven solutions. I think there's an opportunity when the time is right to leverage that 5G innovation, whether it's network slicing and 5G red cap, which I'm sure will debate and break through those traditional boundaries and get the industry working better together to help drive transformational growth for the industries worldwide.

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (00:14:23):
Okay, thank you. Special award for Sandeep. He hit exactly three minutes there to the second unbelievable timing. You did a little pause just before the end desk, that's kind of cheating. But our next expert witnesses, Phil Skipper, he is head of business development for iot, Vodafone business Phil. Fantastic.

Phil Skipper, Vodafone (00:14:45):
Well look, I'm feeling a bit embarrassed standing up here because you're all going to think I'm really old fashioned. So I'm going to talk about two things that customers actually buy and if we cast our minds back before everything was ai, we used to talk about IOT and 5G. Now the one thing we do know is that IOT has been growing for 10 years. I see no sign of it slowing down and it's generated millions and hundreds of millions of connections across the world. But the problem is all of those connections do one of two things. They will tell you where something is and they'll tell you what condition it's in. And all of the thousands of use cases that have actually been built around IOT do one or the other or a combination of the two. So asset tracking, where is your thing? Preventative maintenance, what's the state of your thing?

(00:15:35):
And vehicle telematics is simply where is it and what's the state round the corner comes 5G. 5G gives us low latency, high bandwidth and that enables you to actually start to properly control things. And I think this is the key part. So we've already seen connected planes, trains, cars, cranes, airships, we've done boats. And that goes even further when you think about MP NM and 5G slicing. So once you get to 5G, you inter a completely new set of use classifications. And I think that's where you have to say, does that new set of use cases revitalize and restimulate the IOT market? I don't think it needs much stimulation, but the question is, will the telco be able to capture that value? So we are now talking about much more critical services based on networks. Things like signaling traffic controls, autonomous cars, goodness knows what perhaps sort of flying taxes. But the question is will they capture that value in terms of the things that 5G and iot can now do or will they just let that value dissipate in exchange for lowering the barriers to adoption and getting more immediate value and volume out of 5G. That is the dilemma, 5G plus iot more value or dissipate to actually make sure that you get faster volume adoption on your networks. That's the challenge and I think that's a good topic for debate. So thank you very much. I've got 35 seconds to spare. Thank you.

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (00:17:20):
I thought you were going use those last 30 seconds to talk about techno or maybe some other music trend, but I think

Chris Lewis, Lewis Insight (00:17:26):
There's a carol.

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (00:17:26):
We'll leave that to Chris. Great, thank you very much Phil. Our final witness is it's Itsuma Tanaka, he is president and CEO of Doomo Communications Laboratories Europe, it Suma.

Itsuma Tanaka, Docomo Labs (00:17:48):
Okay. Hello ladies and gentlemen today. So I stand in support of the motion 5G iot is about finding ecosystem partners not in connectivity itself. Let me begin by stating the reality of IOT connectivity in Japan. It operates on razor thin margins. So connectivity alone is not a sustainable business, that's what we hound. So it is not enough to simply provide a network, but we must look beyond the pipe and explore the solutions that built on top of it. So the true value of IOT lies in its transformative power, enabling us to transcend limitations of distance and time. So it brings clarity of remote operations, offering insight as if or even more than if you physically present. So this is what drives productivity and efficiency across industries from agriculture, logistics, healthcare. So connectivity is just the enabler and not the end game. However, the reality is in the iot ecosystem we learned telecom providers are often perceived as just a tiny piece of a larger value chain in their business.

(00:19:06):
So the challenge that we are facing is to reposition ourselves not as enablers but as key orchestrator of value. So this is where partnership actually comes into play. So to deliver the value we must collaborate across different industries, blending expertise from device software platform providers and vertical specialists. So it's no longer about competing over who owns the pipe, but it's about co-creating solutions that solves real world problem. At DoCoMo in Japan, we have been conducting the wide range of the market, the business experiments, working closely with diverse partners and test and refined solutions, but we are learning the hard way, but we are close to finding the answers. Importantly, our efforts are yielding results. Our B2B business is showing consistent steady growth underscoring the potential of this ecosystem driven approach. So by focusing on ecosystems, we can not only deliver value, but also position telecom as indispensable in the iot landscape. So let us remember, connectivity is just the foundation, but the real magic happens when we build on it. So when we find the right partners and co-create solutions that'll transform industry and improve lives. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (00:20:35):
Wow, we've got some real efficiency here in our speakers for this session. So we've heard from our four expert witnesses what we now need of course is a great telco debate motion for everybody to talk about and vote on. So over to you, Chris and Graham to introduce.

Graham Wilde, BWCS (00:20:52):
The good news is we've got a motion. Can you believe it?

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (00:20:55):
I can. Can you believe it? I can. Can you believe

Graham Wilde, BWCS (00:20:57):
It? Okay. The motion is this 5G iot is about finding the ecosystem partners to deliver value not in the connectivity itself. And Chris is going to open the butting by speaking for the motion and I will oppose it strongly in a few minutes.

Chris Lewis, Lewis Insight (00:21:14):
Thank you Graham and thank you witnesses. And we did have our IT debate several times previously within the great telco debate. I think for me this sort of sums up the position that we find ourselves in as an injury as a whole in that, to go back to Graham's point about building stuff inside the industry in the old days and we eventually exposed the service after Marty Sherman, all the Bell Labs had actually done all the testing on it. So we always expected we'd build it and then everybody would come. And I think that was very much what happened with the early iot when Hans Vestberg plucked that 50 billion figure out of the air when he was about to go on stage. I think it was MWC and I dunno who gave him that figure, we're not quite sure, but we know it was a last minute figure.

(00:21:59):
So it created an expectation in the market, which as we've heard from Phil and everybody actually it is more of a slow burn, more of a gradual burn because it is been a very fragmented approach. And in my view of the telecom industry, when we were pushing the old way of the inside out model where we developed something and eventually exposed it, this is completely flipped now to the outside in model where we're having to adapt the service, build the service to what demands are being placed upon the network and upon the industry from the outside, whatever that may be. And I would add to some of the notions of flying. Did you say air ships? Phil? Taxis? I thought you said airships.

Graham Wilde, BWCS (00:22:40):
He did say airships.

Chris Lewis, Lewis Insight (00:22:41):
He did say airships. You did? Yeah. Can we go and check that please, Phil? I think airships think you're going back into the wrong generation there, Phil, but the point being that we are connecting so many things and I want to add to that, into this. If you think about the automation within the industrial world, the automation, the inclusion of passive iot where not only have you got all the things that are being connected, but those passive sensors that feed into the way businesses work as well. So it's the outside in model connectivity, yes, of course is important, but actually the ecosystem and telcos learning to work with learning to work with the partners who actually deliver and bring things together, who make those connectivity things work as part, I think was mentioned very early on this morning about thinking more about the business process rather than about the technology that delivers it.

(00:23:24):
So it's that shift of emphasis away from what the technology can do. We know it's great, but actually it's much more important to see what can D from the outside, that demand from the outside in shaping the way and then adapting the network services to fit that. So in some ways 5G might change some of it, but actually it doesn't change the fundamentals, which is that it's the people doing the integration, the delivery of all that connectivity at the edge, which will actually bring all of those, I suspect, trillions of devices together, not just the 50 billion that SPO put. Thank you.

Graham Wilde, BWCS (00:24:00):
Right. Ladies and gentlemen, let me tell you why Chris completely wrong and you have to vote against this motion. I'll begin with a story. 25 years ago, my wife and I moved from Hong Kong to Herefordshire in the uk, which is a very rural county and we needed a gardener and we found a gardener. The gardener was this guy called Vince who had been in the special forces, which are based in Hereford. And when he left the special forces, he became a gardener. So he started doing our garden for us and it was all fine. He was actually quite good at being a gardener. And then one night in the pub, Vince was in the pub, we were in the pub, everyone was drunk and we said, actually, do you know anybody Vince, who could build a new garden wall for us? And he said, I can do that.

(00:24:45):
So rather foolishly, we agreed to let Vince build the garden wall and even more foolishly we decided to go on holiday while he was doing it. So it came back from our holiday and the garden wall was there and in almost every respect it was a total piece of shit. I mean it was a wall, it was a wall, but the bricks are the wrong color. It was in the wrong place, it was built the wrong way, it was the wrong height. Everything about it was wrong. So I then had to have a discussion with Vince who's a very large and frightening man explaining to him why I wasn't going to pay him for the garden wall. And if that ever happens to you, I can tell you it's a very, very scary thing to do. So why am I telling you this story? Well, Vince had decided that he was going to move up the value chain from gardening to building garden walls and he had no clue really about how to do it.

(00:25:38):
And in the end, I as the customer bore the brunt of that. And unfortunately the remnants of the wall is still there in my garden. We've never changed it. So this is a lesson for us all. Look here in the Hutchison group we have millions of connected iot devices across our mobile operators and we connect those IOT devices to a platform happens to come from Nokia. That platform allows customers to do things like monitor devices, turn them on and offset rules and so on. But that's as far as we go. We don't provide electricity meters for our utility customers in Italy and Ireland. We don't sell train modem devices or have the platforms that manage the connectivity for trains. We just do the gardening and we do it well and we make money out of it. So that's why ladies and gentlemen, when the time comes for vote, you need to vote against the motion, the red side vote against the motion. Thank you very much.

Chris Lewis, Lewis Insight (00:26:42):
So Graham, I would suggest to you that when you were in the pub he said he was special fences, not special. Exactly.

Graham Wilde, BWCS (00:26:49):
I misheard him.

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (00:26:49):
Yeah, very good. So there we go. Graham is saying that the network operators need to stick to the gardening and not move up the value chain. So let's come to the audience first and see if there's any questions for our expert witnesses. Stick your hand up high, right? I can see one over there and one in the middle I think and another one at the back there. Oh, quite a few at the back there. There's a clump over there. So we'll start here and then we're going to go over there to that group over there.

Francis Haysom, Appledore Research (00:27:24):
Francis Haysom Appledore Research. One of the challenges I think in I OT specifically is we're looking at things like we discussed the opportunities through control, et cetera, or maybe moving things to the edge and lots of things around that area. But we often don't look at what is the alternative. And the alternative is actually sometimes not to do something or to use something proprietary or all the rest. And the danger with 5G is that we kind of have a hammer that is applicable to every iot, what we think is a nail. But in fact there's a whole variety of DIY fixers if it were. So are we in danger of one as an industry, we're not looking at what is the alternative wifi and building our own bespoke systems, building our own onsite edge capability that never goes near a telco. And then unless we can understand the value, which is not about technology, it's about better operations, better CapEx, better opex in terms of running a system that we will miss the opportunity. It's not so much as the ecosystem, it's understanding what the real values are being bought beyond just the connectivity.

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (00:28:45):
Okay, anybody want to take that? You want to jump in?

Phil Skipper, Vodafone (00:28:47):
Very good. Well let me start and I think you are absolutely right. When you look at iot, you have to consider a little bit in terms of indoor IOT and outdoor IO ot. Indoor tends to be a little bit different. You might have Bluetooth beacons, you might have wifi, you might have a bit of this outdoor IO ot. You need global coverage. And I think it's then the combination of what's the best technology to use to get to the answer that the customer wants. And we are quite fortunate because we provide IOT as a managed service. We don't sell software, we don't sell networks, we don't do that. What we actually do is we sell a managed service that customers can use. And I think you are absolutely right, one size does not fit all and I think the trick of being good in IOT is to understand how to cut the cloth to fit the customer's requirements. So yeah, I agree. Don't get blindsided by what you have but also be cognizant of the fact that certain networks have certain different conditions. So one of the lovely things about IOT riding on the back of a cellular network is we get all the scale advantages in terms of security and scope and roaming agreements and all the rest of it, which is inherently more difficult to do in the public space if you are using unlicensed technology. But good question,

Sandeep Raithatha, VMO2 (00:30:08):
I would just probably build on that. Yeah, I think it's really important to really stay close to the customer, right? Really understand what's the problem that you're trying to solve and how much value will that create. So they're trying to create a saving, what's that level of saving? They're creating pair problem or endpoint. And then from that to your point, you don't want to crack a hammer with a nut if you don't have room to cost and deliver that solution. So I think he's really got to understand the customer's ROI and price point and then work back to see actually what's going to be the solution that will fit into that. Otherwise, with many iot projects, you'll have a great idea but it won't scale. You'll do a pop but it'll never get to the real scale because there's no value back to the customer.

Sam Bao, China Mobile International (00:30:46):
I have slightly different angles. I think end of the day the application which needs to be used 5G or not is really dependent on the customer. So as telco, our job is empowerment. So from our company's perspective what we do is to funding the research in the applications and IOT applications as well as normal 5G applications to see or different industries how those industries might benefit of using 5G technology. There are industries, many industries that 5G definitely have an edge over other alternative technology that does increase efficiency. So I think your point is definitely correct in terms of the end user need to look at is 5G master go or maybe there's alternative a better solution or simpler solution back earlier points. So this is a sort of repeat. We believe that our telco, our responsibility is to empowerment, empower the society, empower all the enterprises to have the ability possibility, use those new technologies.

Itsuma Tanaka, Docomo Labs (00:32:09):
Okay, yeah, thank you sir. That was a great question. Thank you. My answer is probably similar to Phil, but our sales people, marketing people, we usually receive the same questions. Why cannot we use wifi? But the answer will really depends on the use case inside the house where there's a well pretty good wifi coverage, maybe we don't need 5G there. But as I said in my speech, remote access, I mean access to things, what is going on in most remote places, that's where typically our mobile coverage plays a really important role. There are actually so many options in terms of which telecom network to use, which option to use, but that is really the value. And in that aspect the telecom, there's no alternative to wifi. That's my answer. Thank you.

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (00:33:05):
Okay, thank you Itsuma, we've got a bunch of questions. I'm not sure who's got.... Yeah, if you can say who you are for this, especially for the online audience,

Mark Gilmour, Connectivitree (00:33:14):
Mark Gilmour from Connectivitree. I'll have to reframe my question slightly because Francis took my question there. But on the subject of alternative non three GP sort of technologies, is the three GPP technologies losing traction in this space? Well for example, we had recently at and t suning, MBIO OT as a point, just be interested to hear feedback on that because rather than it being purely telco centric kind of get the feeling that the IOT space is much, much, much broader than the telco community.

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (00:34:01):
Okay. Is cellular iot dying I think was the question.

Mark Gilmour, Connectivitree (00:34:05):
Okay, that's not exactly how I phrased it!

Chris Lewis, Lewis Insight (00:34:10):
Ray. You should be a journalist.

Itsuma Tanaka, Docomo Labs (00:34:13):
Can I? Yeah, thank you very much for the question. I would argue the three GPP solution is not losing traction. Well the NB IOT news and actually for DoCoMo we started NB IOT 2019 and finished it in 2020. Probably we finished it before all of you even started, but it's not about, we are not interested in 3G PPP solutions. 3G PPP has lots of solutions, lots of different options and we just narrowing down the portfolio. But the importance of 3G PPP solution doesn't change. If we want to cover again really wide area, rural area, we still need the 3G PPP solution.

Phil Skipper, Vodafone (00:35:00):
And I think if I step in, I think it's not what it does, it's how you're going to use it. So the reason that we find licensed technology works for our customers is you take out the unpredictability or unpredictability of the network in the middle. So if you're using wifi, you've got no idea if that customer's going to change their wifi provider or something else. So you're always at risk that that connection may become disconnected for something totally outside of your control. And what we find is when we're using licensed technologies, particularly customers love it because they can provision in an identical way anywhere on the planet. And that's one of the great advantages of it. So it's not what it is, whether it's VGPP or it's unlicensed, whatever, does it deliver the capability that the customer wants? So for things like medical devices, they just love it. You plug it in, it connects. If it can't connect on 4G, it will fall back onto NBIO ot. But you don't need to get involved in the middle. And I think that's the bit we get obsessed about what it is as opposed to how our customers using. I think that's where you can pinpoint the value and choose the right technology. Licensed is not right for everything, but it's right for many, many things and that market in itself is very valuable and worth going after.

Chris Lewis, Lewis Insight (00:36:25):
And just may add one thing, which I didn't mean to say Manhattan, from transform insights. So I know Phil works with ON very focused on the IOT world, I think about 10% of the connections today are actually cellular. So there is not, but it is growing just to go back to the IT is actually growing, it's not. But I think the other part, the other question is then about the cost of the devices and which we've come across many times that if the cost of getting a device connected with 5G is too much, it tends to be ruled out. So I think that there is always a cost, especially when we are working in the industrial automation size.

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (00:37:01):
Unless there's any more comments to that question, we can move up. Yeah

Graham Wilde, BWCS (00:37:05):
Ray, just a quick one from me. So in Austria where we have a telco which has a 4G and a 5G network, we also have a LoRaWAN network which is not three gpp, it's a whole different thing. And a lot of the use cases that well customers kind of come with us, they don't really give a monkeys about how we connect things up. They don't understand how all these things work but they just go, I want to connect up in this particular case, snowmaking machines at skim. Excellent. And actually when you look at it, the best way of doing that is with the law of one network because if you want to guarantee connectivity in a ski resort, it's quite expensive. You have to build more infrastructure and that's very expensive and it just completely blows the business case. The customer just is expecting a very small amount of money per snow making machine that he's going to have to pay. And the way that you get inside that envelope is through not through 4G or 5G.

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (00:38:09):
Okay, so still a lot of connectivity chat here rather than the ecosystem or 5G in what that might do. But let's come to the next question.

Dean Bubley, Disruptive Analysis (00:38:22):
I'll have a go at that then. So with 5G and some of the stuff that Phil was talking about, about things like network slicing and service level guarantees and so on, the ability to deliver control rather than just get information. Presumably that fits in with the concept of 5G and being and reliability, part of the word reliability is liability and is the determinant here about the operator versus the ecosystem? Who it is who's going to take that liability if something goes wrong? So if it's an excavator which could injure a worker or it could be a healthcare device or whatever else, is the ecosystem away for the operators, the telcos to let someone else deal with the nasty letters from the lawyers when something goes wrong?

Phil Skipper, Vodafone (00:39:16):
Yeah, what a good question. And I think this then comes down and it becomes really complex about ultimately whose fault it is. But I think the nub of your question is actually the fact that if you're going to do this type of stuff, you have to do it consistently. And I think one of the challenges is, and I look at it in the more extreme cases if it's on my own network, I happen to think our networks are quite good, there's more control over it. The problem is what happens if you are offering a slice on somebody else's network. So we talk sort of glibly about sort of ecosystems and all the rest of it. There's a huge piece of work to be done to make sure that a slice on network A looks like an operates like a slice on network B, even though they may be on different sides of the planet.

(00:40:13):
And I think when you think about IO OT as a global business, by definition when you look at 5G slicing for IOT, you also have to take it from being a local proposition to a global proposition that's going to be quite a bit of heavy lifting and it brings it back to exactly the same point. What happens? Well first of all what happens if you can't do it? But the second one if you can, who's responsible for it? So great question and I think that's one of the ones that does keep me up at night.

Sandeep Raithatha, VMO2 (00:40:46):
Yeah, happy to build on that as well. So as you said, I think 5G slicing is still in its infancy. I think everyone's done the odd trial, the proof of concept or pilot and there is those questions asked and it's the same question I think about is either the liability or risk. And if you think about slicing, it is an ecosystem. So whilst the network provider will provide the network and there'll be an element of reliability in reality there'll be a platform and then some devices as well. And I think it'll come to the question of right, who's going to be the prime and manage that end-to-end solution and then how will those risks flow down to the different partners in that value chain as well. And so I think over the coming year number of trials and proof concepts that we're all working on, we'll start to demonstrate the value and iron out or flag those issues and then we've got to find a solution to them for sure.

Itsuma Tanaka, Docomo Labs (00:41:30):
Yep, that's an excellent question. Thank Yes. So reliability has lots of different aspects. So it's all about, it could be about the QOS, whether it's guaranteed or not or it would, general availability of connectivity and so many different aspects. But for sure that resiliency or the availability of the network, 24 7 0 outage, that's very important. And I think we are, well technically we are still working on this three gpp have been a lot of discussion on this recently as well. But you all come and there are already new pieces of technology like time-sensitive network, make sure we ensure the quality of service, quality of service is there. So I think they are coming, it's quite promising as well. We hear a little requirements from the industry and as for whose fault is it from customer point of view, probably they don't care if we are DoCoMo is the one selling the solution, they point at us and we simply apologize. But then behind there are a lot of finger pointing maybe to the vendors and device manufacturer. I don't know, it depends on what's the problem. But since we are selling the solutions upfront, we are the one that telecom is the one new needs to manage the customer relations. But yeah, hope that answers your question.

Graham Wilde, BWCS (00:43:00):
Okay. Can I just chip in? Oh sorry, go Sam. Yeah, go for it.

Sam Bao, China Mobile International (00:43:04):
Expand a little bit on that Telco worked in both telco and IT industry. So telco is built for resilience and the reliability. So that's throughout the history of the telco businesses, relatively speaking IT industries sort a trial and error go to market first and we fix it, we release new releases. So sort of different mentality in the telco, especially mobile core networks, there's lots of resiliency and backups and built in. If you look any networks sort of have a major outbreak, there'll be news all over the place. Obviously that's so crucial. Infrastructure services for everybody, we don't see that much. So that's sort of another evidence that telco is fairly good at building a very resilient network. Now with the network slicing 5G and 5G private networks are going to be independent networks that those situations may happen. So one of our experiences of a real case sort of deployment, what we did is was to have monitoring both active and passive monitoring, we have probes around the network simulate the simul to the applications of sending the traffic to the server. So if there's any issues, red alarms, we will as a network we immediately know apart from the normal sort of network monitoring, we know that it's network fault or applications. So there's various techniques to separating those responsibilities whether it's through the network operator or the application providers. So that's my input.

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (00:44:43):
And Graham you wanted to comment on?

Graham Wilde, BWCS (00:44:44):
Yeah, so just coming back to your point Dean, I mean when we signed contracts with customers, for example in private 5G networks where we are connecting up say a container port for example, and everybody knows if our network goes down the port stops, right? So we'll have an S, LA and we'll have penalties if we don't meet the SLA. But what we won't do normally or we've never done it anyway so far is we won't accept liquidated damages. So we won't, in other words, we won't compensate the customer for all of the losses of their entire business of the port going down. And sometimes customers say to us, well why won't you do that? Why won't you actually step up to the responsibility you're on line by the, oh sorry. And the simple answer is well the price if you want us to do that, the price is that okay, if you don't want us to do that, the price is this. Now you choose, you choose which one you want. And of course they always choose the lower price, right? So it comes down to what's in the contract at the end of the day. But it's a nice idea but people don't want to pay for it.

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (00:45:54):
Okay. I think we had another couple of, still a few questions over there and I do want at some point here also want to touch on whether the IOT sector needs a renaissance. So whether it's perfectly great by itself, is everybody making a whole load of money? Does it need to have a file list under it? But let's get the next question

Ammar Hussain, Dell Technologies (00:46:18):
Right? I mean actually it is very much related towards you just said and I bringing back to the motion here,

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (00:46:24):
Can you just introduce yourself as well?

Ammar Hussain, Dell Technologies (00:46:25):
Yeah, so Ammar, I work for Dell Technologies, I've been long in telecom networks, so I have been involved in itot in my past career. But my question to the panels and we have people from service providers and leading service providers that do you see that in terms of compared to the hype? Okay, we can say that it was 50 billion was probably just unreal. But looking at the, I think the current estimations are probably three to three and a half billion iot connections right now or by end of 2024 15, which is of course much, much smaller than compared to what was estimated one point in time. But the reason why we are not there is just because it was hype actually we or was there some limitations in the 4G network in the 3G network or perhaps the legislation or whatever that was not allowing us to reach to a higher number and more connections globally and will that be resolved by 5G? So I'm really curious to know what's your view based on your business and experience?

Phil Skipper, Vodafone (00:47:29):
Yes, I think everyone assumes that iot looks a bit like the consumer market. It's very linear actually. It's actually quite Polly and that's because every time you do two G to 4G, there's a whole bunch of stuff that has to happen. People need to set the standard build modules and then somebody has to design that module into a new product and then that new product has to come to market, then it comes to market in one country and then they expand it into others and so on. So for every step in a G you introduce a lag into the process. And I think a good example is N-B-I-O-T, we rolled out M-B-I-O-T and then it took us probably 18 months to two years for the first OEM products to come offer the production line at any scale. So I think the market is much more stepped than it is linear that makes it harder to predict.

(00:48:25):
And I think it was a combination of hype and a sort of not very good prediction of how adoption actually happens in the real world. And I think we're just about to see the same with 5G and 5G REDCap and all the rest of it. The standard is out but the delay between signing off on the standard and kit coming to market is actually quite long. So a combination of two things. One is how does the market actually scale And then the second one is certainly there was a bit of hype in the middle. But with that said, for us IOT is a big business. We now run our business as a standalone organization focused just on IOT. So we believe it's got a fantastic future.

Sandeep Raithatha, VMO2 (00:49:14):
Thank you. Maybe to build on that, I think that's great summary. I'd say a couple of extra points as well. I think there's the network fragmentation, we touched upon it, right in terms of you could have Laura Wan cellular and globally that's causes a challenge when you think about the device availability and getting the price points to the device lower as well. I like the points around the lag as well. So when you think about the network lag from when the standards are defined to once the network is available and then the device at the right price point, we can really scale. So not talking about tens and 20 devices but hundreds of thousands of devices. And I think you've got to take this learning and it's that really critical point because when we look at 5G and 5G REDCap, in reality lots of devices that are being deployed now will be on 4G and a whole range of technologies. They're going to be in the ground in many cases for 10 or 15 years. So when you think about having to go out and going to change those devices at scale, at cost, there really needs to be a really compelling moment or business case to make the evolution of 5G iot work because you're going to have so many connected devices that are going to be in the ground for a while on a whole range of other networks as well. So that's a really important factor fact. Okay,

Ammar Hussain, Dell Technologies (00:50:17):
So would it be fair to say, I mean just sorry to the question again, just like you have a variant of a telco industry for example GSMR, right? I mean it was a technology until recently and that lasted for a long time just because the dynamics of the industry are different. So it's not changing every time there's a new G or it was 3G, three point 5G or so on. So perhaps IOT should not be looked through that lens that we normally look at the mobile network. So it should not be, there should not be any expectation that you just 5G itself will make a huge difference because the dynamics of the iot industry are different. So would it be a fair assumption or some summation of this debate or notion?

Phil Skipper, Vodafone (00:50:58):
Yes. And before I'll just say two words, I think it comes down to sort of optionality. So 5G is another option, it's not a replacement for anything. And I think one of the challenges of the IOT business is by definition it creates an install base that continues to grow. The bigger it becomes, the harder it becomes to change. And so the changes you can get are very incremental. They are not disruptive, it's incremental, but you are absolutely I think spot on in terms of understanding what is that trending of I OT going forwards more than two words. So I'm going to hand those to you.

Itsuma Tanaka, Docomo Labs (00:51:38):
Sorry. Alright, so where did I start to the question? The latest question? Well it really depends on where those iot solutions are used. So like a car, once you have the device, it can go up to 10, 15 years and we usually hear from different industries about different product lifecycle as well, but we need to pick the best one at the time. So it could be 4G, if 5G is the best at the time it's going to be 5G. So similar to your comment, it's about optionality and what is available at the time. Hope that answers some of your questions.

Sam Bao, China Mobile International (00:52:18):
Thank you Sam. I think for the technology wise, 5G for the IOT connectivity for telco perspective, I think we are offering with especially the 5G red cup we probably going to come up later is to offer more choices for the industries to have I connections. We now previously have L-T-M-M-B-I OT or other different connected connection technologies. Now they all different has slightly different sort of purposes and slightly different user scenarios. One would be more suitable than others for certain applications. So this is what telcos do now as general iot business didn't fly as we all expected. I think one of the probably reasons is too many standard there. It's just so if you look at the IOT platform, there's hundreds of thousands of different platforms out there. When you have as a device manufacturer, you develop a device, you first need to decide what module, what sort of communication module you support MB or IOTM or 5G or all these sort of things. So that creates a fairly messy sort of ecosystem. I think that was one of the probably the reasons. So that's probably wider the topic than more than telco space, but as the iot industry that probably something need to

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (00:53:45):
Be addressed. So if I can just ask, is 5G REDCap, there's a lot of excitement about 5G REDCap now, is that actually going to come to anything or might it come to something in four years time and will the introduction of 5G red cap actually enable a broader ecosystem or none of that?

Phil Skipper, Vodafone (00:54:07):
5G REDCap is a bit of an interesting theory because we've just invested in creating super duper high performance networks and the first thing is we introduce a product called reduce capability. So you sort of have to ask the other question. It's a bit like designing a fantastic sports car and then saying, great, you can drive it, but I have to put concrete in the boot. So it's an interesting view. Now to answer your question, I think there's a statement that says look for it to actually work, it's got to find a space in the different connectivity stacks that you've got. Now look, when I started, if you wanted to connect anything, you had to do it on two G, now you can do it on 4G, 5G, 5G, standalone, lo wan, red cap, non-terrestrial satellite. You've just got all these choices stacked up and I think it has to find its natural home and that natural home is a combination of its capability, its availability and its performance. And I think that's the danger. The connectivity landscape is already quite congested and you either have to wait for things to drop off like two G or it has to be really specific. So it fits into one of the levels within the connectivity stack. We have to wait and see where 5G red cap goes. It's certainly on the radar I think for every telco, but I think at the end of the day the customer will choose based on those three attributes.

Itsuma Tanaka, Docomo Labs (00:55:43):
Yeah, I want to add on top of that. Thank you. So again, I'm coming back to the motion. I think it's all about working with ecosystem as well, so having a lot of options questions, it's a very difficult question for us as well is the right way to go or whether we should really invest in 5G REDCap, but it really depends on whether we can find the promising business case together with those industries which request specifics from 5G REDCap, which I cannot tell you what it is now, but I think that's the most important thing. So we don't want to do what we do, what we don't want to repeat is that more product out. We have red cap use, this probably doesn't fly, but we need to actually understand what's on it's going to come in the market. So more market in approach. So that's where we are with Red Cap at the moment.

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (00:56:43):
Okay, we've got a handover over here at the moment. Okay, yeah, if you can give us your name and your company

Ian Fogg, CCS Insight (00:56:54):
Ian Fogg from CCS insight. So I think how I'd frame this is that a lot of the iot market dynamics are about the pace of digitization in different sets of the economy and that's really been driving the uptake of iot. The real question with this motion is can 5G capabilities, so things like red cap with release 17 or red cap with release 18 just been standardized, can that accelerate, can it drive more momentum in the IT market? Can it accelerate digital transformation in other parts of the economy? Are those capabilities so compelling they're going to move the needle or is it just going to be as one of the speakers said, we've got a customer coming in, we've got 5G now we'll deploy them 5G iot solution rather than LT solution and just be a regular cycling. Can we accelerate it? The risk if we don't, don't move ahead by the way with 5G and we just deploy LTE solutions, good enough is we'll be sitting here in 15 years time going, we can't switch off LTE, we've got legacy customers on it because we gave them an LTE solution in 2024, we could have given 'em our 5G solution.

(00:58:02):
So that's the risk. If we don't move ahead and accelerate, we will create a legacy for us in the future to be painful.

Phil Skipper, Vodafone (00:58:10):
Yeah, please, please, yes.

Itsuma Tanaka, Docomo Labs (00:58:11):
Thank you. Great question. Whether 5G would accelerate iot? I would say yes. Okay, so at least we have lots of LT IOT devices, but we have capacity issues. 5G gives you better spectrum for supporting massive connected devices for sure. So that is really useful way. And whether that accelerates digitalization or transformation, that's kind of a different issue. Again, connectivity itself is not the most important thing that's in my position. But yes, digitalization itself takes a lot of time because we need to work with every customer and changing business process. It takes a lot of time, but at least 5G is at the moment is providing us a very good experience in terms of capacity and running network more efficiently.

Phil Skipper, Vodafone (00:59:10):
Another, and I think your question is actually right, because what we're suffering here is time compression caused by technology. So it used to be that the device would go out of life before the network technology changed. We are now in the position where the device life is out seed the technology life and that by definition generates a legacy. And that means you can't have one, you have to have two. Once you've got two, you have to have three. Once you've got three, you have to have four. Because the time it takes for those things to naturally drop off is much longer. So I think you are coming to a point where the install base is almost becoming as important as the new business. But with 5G, for me it's about optionality. There are certain things that LTE can't do, which can be done by 5G and I think the trick is to identify where the shoe fits. So if I'm trying to control drone in the middle of goodness knows where over I'm going to use 5G. Okay. If I want to control a water meter, I might use N-B-I-O-T. And I think it's that sort of thinking and we spend a lot of time looking at how we move the business forwards and increasingly that becomes a hard issue because you have to consider the installed base and install technology every step. But that's the problem with businesses when they become big and the devices have a long lifespan.

Sandeep Raithatha, VMO2 (01:00:45):
Yeah. Maybe to add to it, I think to your point, if you had to think, how would you make it an accelerator taking the learnings from 4G, the first challenge is many times we've been talking about NBIT or LTM maybe what, seven, eight years ago and now we're seeing population coverage of what? 95 up to a hundred percent. It's the same as we're still waiting for, we're rolling out 5G SA as we speak now and that will take a number of years to get to that population coverage. Right? So I think about how that gets the coverage there and then of course it's the devices at the right price point. When you think about some of the red cap and 5G use cases, whether it's video surveillance or industrial sensors, the scale of those you're going to be deploying those at, they'll need to definitely be at a really competitive price point for organizations to buy and deploy them as well. So you need those two factors to drive the acceleration.

Sam Bao, China Mobile International (01:01:33):
So adding on the red cup, I think one of obviously the main incentive for this red cup as Phil points out when we reduce those capabilities once valve just deployed, the obvious incentive is the cost not only for the telcos but also for the devices. That's important part the ecosystem, how lot of device manufacturer relying on that cost. So certain costs reduction, certain costs may introduce certain solutions become viable. So that's probably one of the more incentive for the rail cup. So from a China mobile perspective, we are deploying rail cups. The plan is for 2024, we have 337 cities in China to be covered. That's more or less all the cities. So also our research development company working with the industries have this relatively cost effective chips, communication chips for this red cup to supporting that enables, again, back to my early point is given the industry give the users choices, additional choices for their applications.

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (01:02:48):
Okay. Yeah, there's a question at the back there.

Sandeep Raithatha, VMO2 (01:02:51):
There's one there as well.

Audience (01:02:52):
Someone like

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (01:02:53):
This one there. Oh sorry, I'm sorry. Have you're right in the lights and I in the see sorry. Here next.

Audience (01:02:59):
No, sorry, it goes to the guy over there because I've forgotten my question. Come back to me and I'll remember it.

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (01:03:08):
We'll make this a quick one because it'll about to be two really short questions. I was going to say,

Charlie Ashton, Napatech (01:03:13):
I'll talk really slowly so you have time to remember the question. Okay, I'll go fast. So yeah, so this is Charlie Ashton from Napatech. I think one of the key questions here is it needs to be about use cases, right? So we all agreed that there's a subset of the whole universe of IOT applications that subset actually requires cellular connectivity or telco IOT. So I think then the question is, okay, out of those applications, what use cases actually need 5G as opposed to 4G or even two G? I mean we just heard drones as one specific use case there. What are some of the others that need the features that 5G can deliver?

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (01:03:56):
Okay, great question. If we can get a couple of quick, far answers so we can come back here.

Phil Skipper, Vodafone (01:04:00):
Right. I'll give you two. I think anything that requires control, including something like augmented reality. Augmented reality is simply a control problem. So I think those things we have to connect the hand and the brain, that's going to be something you'll do with 5G robotics, A VR, all of that type of stuff. Control applications,

Sam Bao, China Mobile International (01:04:19):
Our name two, one is internet vehicles or the automatic cars later on it's going to be, has to be powered with 5G, the high bandwidth, low latency stuff. The other one is, I think it's going to be standardized. There's a passive iot where you have a very no battery powered sensors will be deployed everywhere by be able to communicate with 5G network

Itsuma Tanaka, Docomo Labs (01:04:44):
Features for 5G. Well typically what we are selling, what's selling mostly in Japan is bandwidth heavy solutions, especially video and surveillance cameras type of solution plus together with data analysis. So that's something 5G helps a lot.

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (01:05:04):
Okay, that's fine. Okay, great. Thank you.

Audience (01:05:08):
Make it a quick question. What percentage of telco revenue from iot will come from non connectivity in the next five years?

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (01:05:19):
Oh, great question. Who wants to go first?

Phil Skipper, Vodafone (01:05:25):
Well, I will answer the problem is my IOT business and the answer is very little because we focus on hyper scaling, just the connectivity element. So the way we've structured ourselves is we are the connectivity house. On top of that, there are parts and other parts of our business that do mobile private networks, edge 5G standalone. And on top of that we stand our vertical solution companies. So for us, our focus is purely about hyper scaling iot connectivity to more customers in more countries on more networks than anyone else. So it's pretty small for my particular business.

Itsuma Tanaka, Docomo Labs (01:06:04):
For us, sorry, I cannot really tell you how much exactly how much person, but our main target, it's not just selling connectivity but create values using those solutions together. So that will be the key focus and at least we are showing steady growth in that area. So that will come.

Sandeep Raithatha, VMO2 (01:06:23):
Yeah, just to build on that, I think it all depends on the organization and the ambition as well. But yeah, very similar, providing connectivity at scale, both through multiple channels, providing it to wholesalers and specialist solution providers. So it is very small as well.

Sam Bao, China Mobile International (01:06:37):
We build on connective mainly like Phil was saying, mainly we empower, we put money in terms of encourage the industry to build different solutions based on 5G, but mainly really on the connectivity side is what we trying to sell. Then application, there are some but isn't very big.

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (01:06:58):
Okay. Alright. Well I think at this point we will need to move away from the questions and come back to the motion and have a vote. So here is a reminder of the motion 5G iot is about finding the ecosystem partners to deliver the value not in the connectivity itself. So remember with your voting paddles, if you're voting for that motion, it's green forward. If you're voting against that motion, it's the red. So let's get the vote now. Okay. I reckon this is about 75%, four and 25% against, so the motion is carried. It's a real dog fight here today between, I think is that two each neck and neck. It's too old. Okay. All right. So the last one will be a real nailbiter then. And of course that's a highly emotive topic of six G. Right. Okay. Thank you very much for the voting. Thanks to everybody it's coffee time or tea if you prefer tea. I think the break will be about 30 minutes. See you back here at about 3 40, 20 to four. But in the meantime, a round of applause for our speakers. Please.