A race for collaboration and competition

Will they steal each other’s pudding or will they add a cherry? A multi-faceted panel sniffs out the equation between hyper scalers and telcos.

By Pratima Harigunani

“Business equation follows technology interventions in the ecosystem when it comes to disruptions like 5G. After the pandemic, the world has pressed the ‘reset button. Work-from-anywhere is the new norm. To do that, India needs to move from midway 4G to 5G – we have a long way to go. But we really need to open the curtains of 5G. The pandemic has accelerated this inflection point for 5G,” Sukanta Dey, Director Sdela Consulting said as he warmed up a diverse panel at the 20th edition Telecom Leadership Forum organised by Voice&Data.

As the conversation hopped from one topic to the next, the panelist at the technology session on how enterprises and hyper scalers can benefit from the 5G edge and network slicing ecosystem discovered some key paths that hyper scalers and enterprises should mull about as they leap towards 5G. The big one was, of course, should these species compete or date?

There is a common agreement that this is not a telco-only problem, quipped Sudhir Kayamkulangara, Principal Engineer, Cisco Systems. “In the late 90s when we moved from voice to data networks, it was driven by telcos. We acquired learning in later stages, that we need a partner. Today edge locations are moving their cloud to a telco’s footprint. Hyperscalers can take some of the networking aspects from a telco – that’s where potential conflicts can happen. CSPs are like resorts with all facilities but no location, while telcos are like a beach-facing villa with a geographical vantage point. So, both have to collaborate and have a win-win game.”

“Who is going to eat the pudding while the meal is served? Who will have the meatier part of the game,” asked Himanshu Gupta, Country Manager, CME, HPE India as he pointed out that this would be a race for collaboration and competition. “We have seen tie-ups of the hyper scalers with telco players. Markets like Germany, Japan, the US, etc. are also examples where telecom players work closely with technology players. The next level is a good space for both sides to collaborate. But the big players may like to keep themselves up the value chain. Someone who can crack and build the innovations on a platform, RAN side and applications would be a fast mover on the ladder.”

The kind of innovation and automation that is coming from Hyperscalers needs to be adopted very fast, averred Pallav Paliwal, Head-SDN/NFV Strategy and Architecture, Bharti Airtel. “To explore new revenue opportunities is the need of the hour. These are coming from industries like automotive and healthcare. How to create a slice – that will come from different applications. Provisioning would be an important part here. Where exactly will the Cloud application sit? Where will the SLA work? The telecom operator would have to give the right choices to the customer.”

Dey echoed this by reminding me how OTT players ate lunch out of the telco’s lunch boxes in the previous phase. “Telcos have the pipe. Who will use the data now, because, in the battle of business, real-time data can be a big advantage? It depends on how hyper scalers and telcos can mine and use data for their customer. Otherwise, hyper scalers would be another round of OTT-kind of the battle for Telcos.”

Kayamkulangara reminded me that 5G is a complete re-architecture of everything and not just an upgrade. “The most sensitive part in this building is where the hyper scalers meet telcos. That’s also the sweet spot.”

The panel also covered the issue of data ownership and monetization. The billing relationship of the customer is with the telcos. What technologies can be used for enterprises and telcos as well as hyper scalers? These are going to be key determinants ahead “especially when data is changing by the minute,” Dey stated. Does the technology reduce the cost of the ecosystem? Does it add value to the ecosystem? And is it green technology? These are critical questions for any technology.

Also, telcos need to build on global communities and forums. “That will allow them to have a global footprint like an AWS or a Google has. Make your presence felt like the Hyperscalers. Network slicing and IoT etc. can then be used for monetizing data. Also, telcos are sitting on a heavy-asset base, which is a good strength for them. Cloud is a big opportunity in various as-a-service models and verticals. They have to pick their battles very clearly. A collaborator would be of different value to one telecom service provider and different to another.”

Gupta suggested: “NFV, SDN, SD-WAN – show that whatever architecture you take has to have a good blueprint at a carrier-grade level. Flexibility consumption models also play a good part here.” Paliwal resonated with his thoughts when he said, “To tap this market towards Industry 4.0, we need to play a very important role across use-cases, network slicing, 5G core, disaggregation, RAN, spectrum sharing, etc. They have to be done very effectively.”

Bhudutt Jangid, Consultant, Regional Field Systems Engineering, Ciena also talked about the role of network slicing and automation in achieving business outcomes in this new era. “We believe in solving customer problems in a faster and innovative way. We are taking maximum capacity from existing fiber assets. The importance of the digital ecosystem is high. Taking core as a platform, new partnerships can be offered to enterprises and customers. Such companies with a big chunk of data are exploring new revenue models. Such collaborations with local players are emerging as the new way of doing business within the telecom environment,” he stated

Looks like both sides need to figure out a good and fair way to slice this big and expanding pizza. And we are getting there.

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