Guy Daniels, TelecomTV (00:21):
Hello, you are watching our new series on the open Ran Vanguard inside the TELUS Open Ran Transformation. I'm Guy Daniels and this special series of programs will give you an exclusive inside view of the open ran transformation at TELUS, sharing the Telco's vision and its journey as it unfolds. Well over the next several months, we will bring you regular installments each looking at key aspects of open RAN and how TELUS is deploying and using this transformational technology. Full details are on our website and we'll conclude the series with an in-depth panel discussion and an exclusive report from Appledore Research. And to make sure you don't miss any of these programs, then please register your interest and we will keep you updated on all new installments. Well, as one of the industry's first major telcos to deploy Open ran throughout its network, TELUS provides a valuable viewpoint on open Rans current capabilities, its trajectory towards becoming a mainstream solution and its transformative potential in shaping next generation wireless networks.

(01:34):
For this first program, we'll be taking an inside look at open RAN deployment in practice with my special guest today Sushil Rawat who is director of RAN strategy at Telus. Hello Sushil. Good to see you again. Now we're going to be covering the challenges and opportunities that your team has faced in integrating these new open ran components into your existing network architecture. So let me start by asking about the open ran ecosystem being multi-vendor, the ecosystem is commonly treated as more complex than traditional RAN architecture. Have you found this to be a challenger? Tell us what's been your experience within an open ran ecosystem so far?

Sushil Rawat, TELUS (02:26):
Thanks for the opportunity to talk to the team today. And as you said, doing open ran architecture is certainly a little bit more complex than doing traditional ran in terms of having multiple suppliers and integrating through the open interfaces is defined by O Ran alliance, but the gains that you get through the open architecture doesn't come that easy. So yes, there are complication in terms of integrating multi-vendor, but the benefits out of the open architecture are much more appealing than the complexity itself. As part of the Oran integration, we did face challenges in the early days in terms of maturity of interfaces and standardization around interfaces. But over the period of last couple of years, the standards has matured more. The software deployment or the software architecture from radio suppliers, also from DU suppliers and other component suppliers has also evolved and has matured over the period of time.

(03:34):
So with time, the integration has become much more smoother than what it was a few years ago. I've been around in the OR industry for a while now and my experience for over last five, six years has been continuously improving in terms of how the ecosystem is evolving. We have more choices when it comes to radio suppliers. Actually radio ecosystem is a bit crowded right now. There are lots of suppliers for good. You have more choices around low power radios, indoor radios, outdoor radios, massive MO radios. So we have more choices in terms of radio suppliers. Also on the gas platform there are multiple suppliers that exist in the market. Server ecosystem has evolved really well with the use. There are limited choices as of today. As you know, we have been working with Samsung. We publicly announced that earlier this year we've been working with Samsung for du. We are working with vendor for cast platform and we are using latest generation of Intel CPU, which is Safari Rapid E. So overall ecosystem has evolved. The vendor choices have become much more diverse now, so you have more options, which is good and also future proof in terms of sustainability of the architecture. So overall experience with the integration of third party radios and multiple components in OR and architecture has been improving overall.

Guy Daniels, TelecomTV (05:14):
Well that's very positive to hear and we'll talk more about suppliers in a moment. But this first program's all about deployment. So in terms of detailed planning, how does TELUS decide where to target ran sites that will become open ran sites and where to leave conventional ran in place?

Sushil Rawat, TELUS (05:34):
So TELUS is in a very interesting juncture in terms of our planning. We have a network modernization project that we have to execute. This is due to the government mandate in Canada where we have to swap our existing supplier. And in the process we have early part of our network, we have already deployed a Samsung traditional RAN equipment, which is mostly the tens are one areas, the city areas. And starting this year, starting August this year actually we started rolling out Oran architecture and from this point on all our sites will be Orran only. So we do not differentiate that orran has to be deployed in certain geographies or certain kind of environment. We are completely pivoting into Orran architecture, which means we will have orran deployed in urban areas also in the city centers because we will be doing more densification over the period of time. So we'll have mix of traditional RAN and Oran sites in all kind of morphology, be it urban, dense, urban, rural or suburban areas.

Guy Daniels, TelecomTV (06:45):
Okay, that's very clear. Thanks very much Suhsil. Let me come back to the ecosystem though for a moment because I'd like to ask you, in your view, what have been the benefits of adopting a multi-vendor ecosystem and has it been difficult to pick quality suppliers? Are there more options or choices on the horizon?

Sushil Rawat, TELUS (07:08):
Selecting Oran supplier has become more of a strategic decision, to be honest. When it comes to suppliers, you have multiple option across the entire stack. As I was mentioning earlier in the server, a server area, you have multiple options. You have multiple suppliers that build X 86 based server hardwares that are available. All the server suppliers are actually building a custom, not custom, but a specialized hardware that suits the cell side deployment. Our deployment is mostly cell deployment. We have a small number of data center deployment too where you can use a standard higher depth server. But most of our macro deployment is in cell side where you need lower depth servers and all the suppliers have been very good in that regard. They have proactively built servers and design that fits the cell site deployment. So we have a good amount of options. Then same thing with radio.

(08:19):
As I said, we have low power radios in building radios, macro radios, dual band, tri band, and massive mimer radios. Our frequency holding is actually quite complex. We have pretty much everything all the way from 600 to 3.7, pretty much all frequency band in between. We have some kind of spectrum holding, which is not very common in other part of the world like Europe and Southeast Asian market or other market. We don't have the same band. It's very closed in terms of frequency spots, but not exactly same. So we were able to build radio with suppliers. We have third party suppliers, we are working with Samsung radios. So overall we have a lot of option and decisions are basically made based on practicality and what is more suitable for our network. So I think vendor ecosystem is quite diverse and very much available.

Guy Daniels, TelecomTV (09:18):
Well that's all very good to hear. Can we move on now and look at open ran lifecycle for a moment? I'd like to ask how are service management and orchestration SMO and the RAN intelligent controller, the rick, how are they contributing to the lifecycle of open ran architecture?

Sushil Rawat, TELUS (09:39):
I always say this and I have been saying this for a few years now. Automation, SMO and Rick architecture is kind of essential. Open ran is not an optional software or optional network element that you need with more disaggregated architecture, you need an automation that is more cohesive and is able to deploy a service without a lot of human intervention. If anybody plan to deploy open, ran using a cloud platform and contain RISE application manually, that will be a magnitude of work that you have to do over and above what people do with traditional RAN today. So SMO and zero touch provisioning, service orchestration, radio intelligent controller, all these components are necessary part of the ecosystem. We have been working with Samsung on SMO. We also have our overarching SMO in-house, which basically allow us to integrate with other tools that exist in our network.

(10:51):
This is a very common architecture with most of the Brownfield operator because we have been operating our network for four decades now and we have multiple tools, those are available in the network. So most of the operators try to stitch all those tools into a single workflow which allow us to orchestrate VDU with a touch of a button. So we have developed that capability in house and we are able to integrate our sites today with the help of Samsung SMO Plus and overarching SMO that we have. When it comes to R, we are just evaluating the R infrastructure and Rick solution from multiple suppliers. Right now we have evaluated proposal from multiple suppliers and I was quite surprised to see how many options we have in the market. There are lots of suppliers who have been working with our app suppliers, so the overall app ecosystem and platform ecosystem for Rick is also very diverse and very close to be deployed or ready to use. And Rick also opened up a new opportunity for operators to introduce a very specialized software which provide additional gains and efficiency in the network operation.

Guy Daniels, TelecomTV (12:21):
Okay. This is really interesting. And social thinking about network experience for the customer, for users, is there a difference in how you evaluate the performance of open ran compared to traditional ran? How do your customers benefit from having access to open ran?

Sushil Rawat, TELUS (12:42):
So there has been this debate about RAN performance when it comes to Brownfield. I think till now the main discussion was is open ran ready to be deployed in a Brownfield environment where the services are much more complex and we have variety of services that we supply to our customers, we have have achieved the first point where we have proved along with our partners like Samsung and others, we have proved that Oran as a technology architecture does match and have an at part performance with a traditional brand software. When it comes to our customer experience, I would say there is a parity in terms of performance. So from a customer point of view, they do not really see a difference between traditional RAN and OAN as of today. But what OAN also allow us to do more deeper analysis of customer experience, provide us more data point, allow us to integrate analytics and AI technologies to improve their customer experience over the period of time. And with the openness of hardware and disaggregation, we are also now able to introduce new capabilities much more faster than traditional ran. So those are the future looking items which will help our customer and will help us improve our customer experience in future.

Guy Daniels, TelecomTV (14:12):
Well, final question for you. What role do you believe Open RAN has played in accelerating the deployment of 5G and future network technologies

Sushil Rawat, TELUS (14:23):
When it comes to open RAN and accelerating of deployment of 5G? 5G has open RAN offer more options for 5G deployment. If you look at the ecosystem today from supplier point of view, most of them support 5G today and a few of them have 4G in roadmap. Samsung is one of the few suppliers who support 4G plus 5G in a Brownfield scenario today. That's one of the reasons we are working with Samsung on our Orran deployment. But definitely 5G is more supported. So Oran can be used to deploy 5G today when it comes to introduction of new technology like 5G Advance or six G, where there is addition of new spectrum or where there is expansion of existing bandwidth on existing technologies. In case of traditional supplier, a lot of times, not all the time, but a lot of times you might need to increase your hardware so you might have to add a new card or you might have to add a new basement. But when it comes to open ran, you can still leverage your existing compute power that you have at sell side. So you reduce your time for the truck rolls visit of site and installing of new hardware with, or you are now able to deploy that technology much more efficiently, much more faster. So Oran does enable introduction of new technology in a much faster pace when it comes to technology introduction.

Guy Daniels, TelecomTV (16:01):
Well we must leave it there for now. Sushil, thank you very much indeed for sharing your views with us today and if you enjoyed this program then please watch the next in the series a discussion with Intel that provides extra context on the current state of open ran deployments, telecom TV's editorial director Ray Le Maistre spoke with Intel's, Matt Conrod and Udayan Mukherjee at the recent Fyuz event and asked about the total cost of ownership metrics related to Open ran the role of AI in the RAN and the benefits of hands-on experience with open disaggregated architectures. We will be back next month with the second installment in our series on the open ran Vanguard inside the TELUS Open Ran transformation. And to make sure you don't miss the release of these videos, register your interest and sign up at our website and this is where you'll also find further information about the series along with links to all related content. For now though, thank you for watching this first installment of our new open ran Vanguard series and until next time, goodbye.