Your 5G - it’s as easy as 1, 2, 3
Director of Marketing Strategy
Consulting Manager – 5G, Cloud & Networks
Director of Marketing Strategy
Consulting Manager – 5G, Cloud & Networks
Director of Marketing Strategy
Consulting Manager – 5G, Cloud & Networks
So as you are ready to take the leap towards 5G, how do you grab the best of what is out there with the most revenue potential? What makes most sense for the market you are playing in? What gives you that added edge so that your customers will not think twice when it comes to selecting their preferred service provider – You.
Explore our latest video “Your Roadmap to 5G” which provides some practical steps that set you on the right path for a smooth evolution to 5G.
I recently met with two of our 5G consultants, Juan Carlos Ortiz and Hemant Patil to explore this subject further. These consultants have experience in large scale telco transformations and have been hosting workshops with some of the most innovative operators around the world.
Read what they had to say…
Q: Hemant, what criteria are essential for success in the evolution towards 5G?
A: “For service providers to claim their space in 5G, we believe that they require capabilities in 3 critical areas: business, technology and operational. Let me give you some highlights for each:
1. When we talk about Business capabilities we want to best monetize on the services available from the various players within the value chain. We need to understand what it takes to build and run a dedicated B2B and B2B2C go-to-market model and most importantly how to form the partnerships that are needed to make these models come alive and thrive.
2. In terms of the Technical capabilities, this is about making the move towards completely cloud-native applications and platforms, implementing AI and analytics to make the most out of data, monetizing network and service exposure APIs for OnDemand network, Data and IoT, and maximizing the value that comes with edge computing, besides introducing automation into every app, every activity – so you can minimize on cost while you increase speed and agility.
3. And then finally, the service provider should consider the Operational capabilities that are needed so as to
- Embrace software pipelines CI/CD and DevSecOps to make development and deployment more efficient, secure and with drastically reduced lead times.
- Upgrade IT skills so that the workforce can evolve with the technologies.
- Enable a data driven predictive environment, to proactively address issues before they arise and become detrimental.
Q: Juan Carlos, what are the key use cases that will bring significant new revenue streams for operators?
A: “Ericsson has identified well over 300 prospective use cases across the consumer and enterprise segments that operators could pursue and commercialize taking advantage of 5G capabilities. Which of these use cases will be relevant for a particular operator will depend on a number of factors, including but not limited to:
- Local market dynamics
- Ability of the operator to effectively establish partnerships within a given vertical industry ecosystem
- Role the operator will play as part of the service delivery
- Establishment of effective business models to monetize the opportunity
- Agile rollout of the necessary enabling technical capabilities
- Ericsson Consulting has experience helping operators evaluate the feasibility of a broad range use cases across the business and technical perspectives.”
Q: Juan Carlos, what are the major challenges operators face as they evolve their network infrastructure towards 5G?
A: “There are a multitude of decisions a communications service provider must make throughout its journey towards 5G. Here, I must say that the evolution path is a function of the operator’s vision rooted in the operator’s market and ambitions.
Having said that, some of these decisions are built around spectrum choices, architecture migration considerations, RAN and Core evolution leveraging capabilities of NFV/Cloud, etc.
Each decision warrants a substantial level of due diligence to evaluate alternatives and tradeoffs. However, all those decisions will be driven by the business priorities, existing relationships with strategic partners and roles an operator would like to play in this competitive ecosystem – whether they want to continue on path to becoming a leading connectivity provider or aspire to become a service creator. Use cases will drive specific performance targets - peak data rates, mobility, latency, connection density, energy consumption/efficiency, availability, position accuracy and others. Applying a framework to business and technology drivers helps in determining tangible options and decisions. These further hinge upon whether they aim to exploit efficiencies to reduce network costs and/or to tap into new sources of income.”
Q: Hemant, so I’m ready to start my journey towards 5G. How do I get started?
A: Ericsson can provide insights to every sort of question for a wide variety of audiences such as:
- What lessons learnt have already been gained towards a successful introduction of 5G?
- Which application or vertical segment could lead to a high increase in potential revenue?
- How does an operator translate the Service offerings to required Service and Network capabilities?
- What specific Technologies should an Operator consider and what should their deployment timeline be, in conjunction with standards and ecosystem maturity?
- How can an operator maximize/leverage existing assets in the evolution to 5G?”
Want to find out more?
So it’s fair to say that the path to 5G can indeed seem intimidating, but with the proper preparations, you can be assured a smooth evolution to 5G. Learn more about our experts Hemant and Juan Carlos by clicking on their profiles below. Reach out to them direct, via their LinkedIn profiles, or drop us an email to book a 5G transformation workshop by clicking here.