I attended Mobile World Congress Barcelona 2024 and had the opportunity to meet with numerous mobility companies and infrastructure providers from around the world. The event is sure to test your mental and physical endurance as you juggle multiple meetings while traversing his eight exhibition halls at the Fira Gran Via Exhibition Center.
As with the construction of an addition to Barcelona's famous Sagrada Familia church, which is nearing completion after more than 140 years, capturing every announcement would be an almost impossible feat. With that in mind, my goal is to focus on his three areas that my colleague Anshel Sag and I discussed in his G2 MWC Barcelona Preview episode of his 5G podcast: Telecom Generated AI , the evolution of open RAN, and a focus on low-orbit satellite communications. Let's dive in!
Carrier-generated AI
It's no exaggeration to say that the hype around AI is growing. Natural language interfaces for generative AI have democratized access and made AI more tangible to the masses. The disruptive potential of applications in the telecommunications sector is enormous, from improving mobile network resiliency and customer support services to facilitating the personalization of services that can improve profitability for carriers. yeah.
Perhaps the biggest sign that generative AI has landed in the communications space was Dell Technologies CEO Michael Dell's keynote on AI at this year's MWC Barcelona. The way I see it, Dell has come a long way in its telecom journey. He has built a strong leadership bench with telecom veterans, leveraging his DNA in ecosystems and strengths in compute, storage, and most recently, AI. This has allowed us to forge high-value partnerships, such as our recent announcement with Nokia related to private cellular networking services.
It's also worth pointing out that Hewlett Packard Enterprises' surprising announcement to acquire Juniper Networks for $14 billion will have ripple effects on the application of generative AI in telecommunications. Given the capabilities of its Cloud Metro service, which leverages the power of RAN intelligent controllers, highly software-defined universal routing platforms, and network slicing to deliver deterministic 5G connectivity support, Juniper is a leading service provider brings the strengths of At MWC Barcelona, I met with Juniper CEO Rami Rahim and executives from his Aruba Networking and his Athonet divisions at HPE. He will eventually deploy Juniper's Mist AI platform across his HPE connectivity stack, extending to private cellular networking deployments through Aruba's existing enterprise footprint and also benefiting from Athonet's mobile services. I newly recognized the potential of HPE. Core features and proven track record.
Evolution of open RAN
Despite the promise of what an industry-standard disaggregated infrastructure for radio access networks could deliver in terms of cost containment and supply chain diversity, I'm disappointed in Open RAN. I was skeptical from the beginning. Integration is key to a successful implementation, as are performance issues that need to be addressed. From my perspective, I'm happy with both, as evidenced by recent ORAN inline accelerator cards with silicon from Marvell, Qualcomm, and others, as well as recent integration developments.
On the integration front, I continue to be impressed with NTT Docomo and the work they are doing through the OREX platform and growing ecosystem of partners. I was briefed by executives before MWC Barcelona about plans to form a joint venture in April to expand support and implementation beyond the Japanese market. It's a smart move that embodies lessons learned from competitor Rakuten's pioneering efforts and subsequent stumbles to grow the Symphony platform beyond a handful of mobile network operators. Additionally, NTT announced at the event that AWS will join the company's OREX ecosystem and deploy NTT's nationwide 5G ORAN infrastructure in Japan as well. AWS is no stranger to telecommunications and joins a long list of other NTT OREX partners including Dell Technologies, HPE, NEC, Nvidia, and more.
I also spent time with the Samsung Networks team. The company bet on his ORAN from an early stage, and as a result, it has been able to make the biggest gains to date in terms of adoption compared to traditional established competitors Ericsson, Huawei and Nokia . Samsung claims that to date he has installed over 38,000 of his ORAN compliant sites, a statistic that shows the commercial success and budding momentum of his ORAN.
Finally, it would be remiss of me not to acknowledge the elephant in the room with ORAN. That's a concern with the emergence of single-vendor ORAN deployments, something that appears to be flying in the face of an “open” ecosystem. Indeed, last year's historic announcement between AT&T and Ericsson appears to be a merger into one vendor. However, given the need for ORAN integration mentioned earlier, it is wise to start with one vendor and diversify over time, especially in large brownfield deployments like AT&T's network. I believe that it is. Time will tell, but given the need for continuity of supply, I believe that ORAN deployment will enable supply chain diversity.
low orbit satellite communication
Before and after MWC, I had the opportunity to spend time with AST SpaceMobile and Sateliot, two companies that I consider to be frontrunners in LEO satellite connectivity. I've written about AST SpaceMobile in the past, but I first met Abel Abellan, CEO of MWC Barcelona, after taking an exclusive tour of the company's facility in Midland, Texas, in 2023. What I found profound was the company's mission to give AT&T. , Rakuten, Vodafone and other mobile network operators have the ability to connect subscribers over the terrestrial spectrum where broadband coverage is not available, much more so than other LEO satellite service providers. You can connect with fewer satellites. Abellan and I also share a passionate belief that access to connectivity should be a fundamental human right, which is why in February of this year he announced his commitment to ensuring universal connectivity. ITU/UNESCO He was appointed to the Broadband Commission.
Sateliot, based in Barcelona, aims to provide connectivity for narrowband IoT devices and sensors when it launches its first set of commercial LEO satellites in late 2024. I met CEO Jaume Sanpera at MWC Barcelona following our first video chat last time. Year. Sanpera has a number of use cases spanning sustainability, wildlife conservation, agricultural technology and more, as evidenced by the growing number of agreements the company has signed with telecom service providers and his broadcast MNOs. believes his goal of providing connectivity will be disruptive. Ground spectrum. I believe the use cases the company is focusing on are compelling. More may follow once it goes into production.
summary
MWC Barcelona 2024 delivered results on many fronts, including the promise of generative AI for communications workloads, the evolution of ORAN, and the promise of direct connectivity to mobile phones and IoT sensors created by LEO satellite technology. . All three represent an opportunity to significantly increase significant investment in next-generation 5G networks by carriers and service providers around the world. Some experts believe that 5G has not lived up to its hype. I believe that as 5G standalone continues its rollout journey, these three communications trends will help it reach its full potential and perhaps extend what we thought was possible. claim.
Moor Insights & Strategy, like all technology industry research and analyst firms, provides or offers paid services to technology companies. These services include research, analysis, advisory, consulting, benchmarking, acquisition matchmaking, video and speaker sponsorship. Among the companies mentioned in this article, Moor Insights & Strategy has paid business relationships with AT&T, AWS, Dell Technologies, Ericsson, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Juniper Networks, Marvell Technology, Nokia, NTT, Nvidia, Qualcomm, and Samsung. had or currently has.