Get Beyond the Buzzwords of Network Convergence and Virtualization

Hey, everyone. This is Daniel Litwin, the voice of b two b, and welcome to another episode of Wavelengths, an Amphenol broadband solutions podcast. Thank you so much for joining us on another episode of ABS' show. We're We're excited to bring you some quality thought leadership from the high-tech, telco, and broadband industries. Before we get into our high profile guest today, giving some hot takes on some big trends in the telco and high-tech industries, We wanna make sure that you're getting all the ABS content you desire. So make sure you're going to our website, amphenol broadband dot com. Again, amphenol broadband dot com for more information on solutions, services, obviously, other ABS content as well, like podcasts, articles, videos, and more. And make sure that you're subscribing to Wavelengths on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Just hit that subscribe button, and you'll have a full catalog of previous conversations as well as notifications when we drop new ones. So without further ado, on today's episode of wavelengths, we're talking everyone's favorite in the telco industry, some pretty unavoidable topics that would be buzzwords. For good reason, buzzwords often generate a lot of buzz and a lot of industry chatter in their respective conversations, in their respective industries about big opportunities, existential challenges, and often reflecting some very real impending futures for said industries and, obviously, today for the telco industry. So today, we're honing in on two different buzzwords to big trends shaping the telecommunications industry today. That would be network convergence and network virtualization. Again, network convergence, network virtualization. So what we're going to be doing today is getting a state of the union on each of these buzzwords to try to better understand how the industry is relating to them today, better understand their impact on the telco industry, and how telcos can be actionable around these buzzwords in positive ways that lean in organically to some of these really big shifts hitting the industry. So all of this is worth some discussion, obviously, and who better to give it but our thought leader for today. I'm really pleased to welcome our guest on Wavelengths, PJ Jaya Wardena. He is senior director and head of five g r and d and fixed wireless access for Charter Communications, which is the parent company for Spectrum. PJ built his career in the industry at Ericsson, one of the biggest global equipment manufacturers. He also drove break in for a two radio access network virtualization startup, AltioStar, and he's now at the forefront of the industry leading five g r and d and convergence for the cable industry. PJ, great to have you on. How are you doing today? I'm good. Thanks for having me, Daniel. Looking forward to the discussion. Yeah. It's a real pleasure again to chat today. We've got a lot to break down. Like we said, buzzwords are always a big deal. They're always generating buzz. Sometimes people can get lost in that muddiness and that mire of, you know, is this important to me? Everyone is doing it. Maybe I should too. And I think with these two, buzzwords specifically, I can really miss the scope of why these things are happening, why they're important, and why they can be so positive for not only end users, but also businesses. So I think it's time to go ahead and jump in. We're gonna start with our first buzzword. That is, again, network convergence. So I think to start, just so our audience gets, the right context, can you give us an elevator pitch definition of what network convergence is in the context of the telecommunications industry? And, you know, just summarize that specific general wow, that's an oxymoron. That specific general definition, and then we'll get into deeper aspects of the conversation today. Sure. It's thing is, it's not just the one word. It's not just a convergence. You gotta look at network and convergence together. Because when you think about convergence, people think of multiple things coming together really. And that applies to different fears. In telecoms, in our area, be it cable, be it wireless, the concept of convergence is about providing the users a consistent connectivity thread. That's what it is. Few years down the track, all of us will not really care who's providing the service for my phone, my tablet, my smart TV in the home, inside my home when I'm walking outside, going in my car. The idea is that all these networks and your connecting tissue will be seamless to you. Now to achieve that, there are different parts, so many different elements that have to come together to make that seamless experience. And that is what we're going to talk about today. Yeah. Like you were saying, like I was saying as well, this is a familiar trend for telcos. The idea of converging networks is not new, but it is one that continues to expand in its scope, and that expansion of scope can create some strategic challenges for telcos to get ahead. You know, as more broadband services are added, as more spectrum, more wavelengths are added, and, as consumer demands change as well, all of these convergences gain layers of strategic and operational adjustment that can create headaches for telcos. And honestly, to the point that it's not a new topic, we can take it all the way back to the Telco Act of nineteen ninety six when the convergence of telecommunications companies and therefore their services became basically encouraged. And now we've been living with twenty five plus years of that specific deregulation around telco convergence. I think that's really put telcos in a place to maximize this convergence to remain competitive, but I think there's still some uncertainty around, you know, why network convergence is applicable. And even with all of that time, all of that, you know, twenty five years of experience, it's still not a hundred percent certain that, oh, yeah, this is an actionable strategy, and we're doing so intentionally. Right? So let's break that down. Why are we still having this conversation? Why are we still seeing trepidation or confusion around network convergence from telco players? Just break that down for us and give us the why. So great example. Going back to what you talked about, the ninety six Telecommunications Act. I mean, was long overdue. It's been sixty something years, right, since something was introduced in the telecoms field. What it led to was more of the consolidation of different companies. And it's very interesting for us to look at it that way and say, isn't convergence a consolidation of multiple companies? Now, actually, it's a little bit more nuanced than that. The consolidation of these companies would probably lead to a connectivity and a user experience. And that's the piece that's getting more traction right now. To achieve that connectivity experience, that seamless experience, would it lead to a consolidation of different companies? Possibly. But within the convergence realm, when you talk to different service providers, you're going to hear different responses, you're going hear different interpretations. And it all comes down to everybody having the seamless experience. This is my view. That as a subscriber, you don't worry about the internet because the internet is that connectivity fabric right now. Every application that we're using right now can be put on top of it. Voice could be, is an application on top because people use different voice applications to make that voice call. On conference calls are managed through an over the top application. Your video consumption, your shopping, your everything that you do right now is an over the top application on top of the internet. So the underlying connectivity tissue is the internet. So to answer your question then becomes, okay, how do I provide seamless internet to any device? Your smart watch could be your phone, all the devices that you have your kids using. And providing that connectivity experience across wherever you go, but you know, the elevator pitch that we just talked about. And he who can provide that seamless experience, the people who are going to win because you're going to have customer loyalty, brand loyalty and even, you know, and it's not just that, right? You get to a point where you get one bill to the customer. It's a single bill. You don't have to worry about multiple payment avenues, different, you know, providers paying for a different bill. So connectivity, then comes the content, the billing, the provisioning of the users, and then the standards that need to go to make all of these things happen because today we have different technologies. You have the 3GPP avenue that provides cellular connectivity. You have the IEEE organization, you know, with some of their doing on the WiFi space. And I think we are going talk about WiFi in a little bit. But when you look at the foundational building blocks, and even within cable industry as well, when you actually get to the physical layer, you start looking at modulation schemes and everything, even they are starting to come up with the most seamless and cleverest way. Then you move up to the different applications, then you start looking at provisioning, then you start looking at billing. So all of these have to come together because it's not the same technology that is going to be prevalent everywhere. And it should not be a zero sum game. That's the tricky part is in convergence, it's not to say one technology supersedes the other. It's a harmonization across all these access capabilities coming together so that from a user's point of view, I really don't have to care about what technology I'm using. Wherever I go, I've got the internet on my phone, my watch, and anything else that I need. Can you expand a bit on how the uncertainty around the benefits of network convergence are impacting telecommunications business models today, especially if we intersect the push for cutting edge wireless tech like you were talking about. Five g, Wi Fi six e, these are really reshaping telco services. So with that confusion or trepidation around convergence, as these networks expand, are we seeing really clear winners and really clear losers in the broader telco industry? Give us your thoughts. It's a it's a really it's an interesting question, Daniel, and it comes down to that, you know, it does not have to be a zero sum game philosophy. The challenge is a lot of people have to overcome as you continue this journey of providing convergence and the seamless connectivity, you have to maintain your current business. You know, you can't, you know, different operators are leading in the different realms that they are really strong in right now. And the transition to a converged experience has to be organic without breaking the bank. Now, are things that are happening organically because of some of the capabilities that are coming in the devices, and the devices end up being the anchor point for a lot of these, for the user's experience, because the device can now switch between different ways of access. And there are clever things you can do on that side. That might be the first step that you would take. But you're right that there is some consternation to go ahead and overhaul your existing network because there is a large portion of your customer base that's enjoying that connectivity experience that meets all their requirements and their user experiences. So you've got to maintain that while making this transition. And it's happening organically. It's not something that will happen tomorrow. It's a journey that we will go through for the different parts of the organization. And for the customer, you're gonna see the benefits of it happen maybe in the next five, ten years or so. And to your point that consumers are are already engaging with this concept of network convergence and are seeing the benefits. And just the fact that convergence benefits the consumer almost as much, if not more, than the business, I think this really showcases why consumers are driving a lot of the demand for network convergence. I'll expand on that here. I've got some research from OSS, BSS firm OpenNet. They did some consumer research in twenty nineteen, I thought was a good framing for another question here. Seventy three percent of the consumers and basically just the respondents of the survey said that they were open to purchasing more digital services from their telcos. So they're ready to expand the scope of their relationship with telcos. And to that point, sixty five percent of respondents said that it would make them feel more engaged with their telco company. They feel like they would have a better understanding of their relationship with their provider and feel like they have a a more solidified or holistic back and forth with that provider, which I think just shows the benefits of how Convergence can amplify that relationship. So to that point, with this much enthusiasm for unified services, how do you think this will continue to shape some of these trends in network convergence? Go ahead and break that down for us. It's definitely gonna create a positive trend, because what's important for every, operator is the relationship, And you measure your success by the number of relationships that you have, and from a business point of view, is that the revenue you generate from those relationships. So what creates stickiness? It's creating stickiness with that relationship and maintaining that is like any normal relationship, is to be able to provide the needs of that customer. You brought us some great examples. Is, you know, with a single bill, if we can, any connectivity provider can provide all the connectivity needs of that subscriber, then that's a customer that's going to stay loyal to you. Wherever he goes, you know, people have multiple homes, people have cabins and in rural areas. If you were one example would be, you know, I know a family who ended up sticking with one provider because when they're up in their cabin, they have service over there. It's just to be able to make a voice call over there, right? And as a result, they stay loyal to that provider in their primary residence as well. And that has expanded and that was in the voice era. Now it's about your content that you can get, your ability to do online shopping for your kids because kids need things at the drop of a hat. So you can, you know, the last thing you want to do is be stuck somewhere and the kids can't get on their tablets. For parents that need to go in restaurants who endure that, you know, it's a problem that you have. So just imagine being able to go to any location and not having to authenticate separately, not having to, you know, sign up with your credit card with every single connectivity hotspot that you have. Just imagine if you didn't have to do any of that. Wherever you go, you can go to your neighbor's house, you can go, you know, to a restaurant and you are automatically connected. You don't have to, you know, log your credentials in. If you're a healthcare provider, you walk into your, to the hospital, if you're a doctor, automatically have access to all the patient's records when you're physically in the building. When you're there, you don't have to authenticate separately and by doing that, you're now HIPAA compliant. So, and then when you leave the building, access is revoked. You don't have, you can't access the records. That kind of realm of connectivity would create that loyalty that you are talking about. That kind of seamless transitions removing all the pain points for the end consumer are the things that will drive a positive take towards convergence. Because all those examples I gave you have implications to different parts of a service provider's, you know, different organizations and what they have to do. So it's going to be a positive change and the end user experience is going to be phenomenal. You know, what I think is really engaging about this conversation and, you know, potentially revealing as to why network convergence still has some hesitation around it, to put it lightly, is that network convergence seems like it would be a no brainer. We already have a user base that is wanting it very clearly. We have a user base that benefits immediately from some of those operational changes, billing changes, service tech changes to, you know, a post converged network infrastructure, and we're also seeing a lot of positives for the business, for their structures and operations and leadership vision, business models, etcetera. But there's still confusion around it or there's still hesitation. And I think a big reason why and a pretty valid reason is that network convergence, even though in the end can be useful for all parties in that transition period, causes a lot of internal disruption. So this can be things like changes in leadership, changes in leadership direction and vision, could be change in processes and functions within the company, could be changes in relationship as a company to your product, to your service. You know, if it expands in scope or if it synergizes, unifies into one product or offering, that changes your relationship to that service, to how you market it, how you sell it, how you fix it if there are issues, and also how you maximize your revenue around it. So with all of that in mind, what would you say telcos need to do to continue maximizing that disruption for positive change rather than let it be a breaking point or a point of real disruption to their company? Give us your thoughts there. I Great question. And you're right, there is going to be inertia because, you know, there are fundamental ways of the business being operated. Are operational organizations and support organizations that are built around a certain way of working. And it's normal. The way to embrace convergence is to look at it in a very organic way. It is, you know, I think you, if you were to let the it's almost like the river flowing, you just let it take the path of least resistance. There are things that can be done easily. You don't need to completely overhaul your complete network, your architectural ways of working. Because if you take a step back and look at historic ways of things working, you know, things have always evolved and most telcos, most connectivity providers actually understand that. There is the, you know, there's table stakes, is your current way of doing business. But there are things that are happening within the business that would organically lend itself towards convergence. And it could start with something very basic in the operational side of the house. It could easily start with the billing piece. You know, you can start over there where you just give you one bill. It's a simple bill. Let's start over there. Alright, now as you start looking at more revenue opportunities as you expand to different verticals, then once again, the same single build continues, but now you've added different connectivity pieces to your toolkit. And then for the customer, it's still just a single experience. And then on the devices side, the devices are evolving, There's a lot of things that are happening and we talked about that briefly. Some cleverness that's happening in the devices where they can enable seamless connectivity. So from an operator's point of view, you start looking at what are the little dials I can change on the device and that will make sure the customer doesn't feel any pain, that they could transition from different connectivity mediums and they don't see any drop in their phone call, a video call that you're having or a video that your kids are watching. Nothing happens that way. So organically, it's happening that way. But to get to the end state, I think after a while, have to start looking at, okay, what is the legacy network that I'm hauling? And Wi Fi six is a classic example, a 6E really, mean, 6E only works in the extended spectrum. It does not support a legacy. So at some point, you've got to sort of rip the band aid and say, I'm not going to haul all of these things to provide this seamless, massive connectivity experience. And that'll happen. I think as the devices progress and the device start organically pushing the users towards a connectivity and a technology realm, then the legacy supporting networks can sort of be shut down. And now you automatically have a converged network experience. It's it's it's a journey, and and we'll get there. And PJ, I think on that note, that's gonna be it for this buzzword. So thank you so much for your thoughts on network convergence and why it's creating a lot of opportunities, but also why there's still some hesitation around it and how telcos can come out on top and, you know, not play into just the buzzword, but into the actual benefits, the organic benefits that come from network convergence. To that point, let's go ahead and jump over to our second buzzword. This one is again on networks, this time network virtualization. Again, network virtualization. So, PJ, can you start us off the same way we did with network convergence? Give us that elevator pitch definition for network virtualization, but just specifically in the context of telcos. Why is this a conversation we should be having today? So network virtualization, the the the best example is to start thinking of it as, being able to build your own car, you know, wherever you, you know, with the parts that you need to put together. So you have this preference of a car that needs to go at a certain speed that can change its dynamic, you know, the steering wheel changes, the seat changes, everything changes, and you put it all together. From a network's point of view, the virtualization happens where you use general purpose hardware at different elements of different breakpoints in the network and giving you the ability to scale up the resources and the services that you want to bring either close to the customer or take them further away from the customer to have better aggregation. Virtualization is a fundamental element in giving you that elasticity and flexibility in how your network is deployed and run. And there are benefits to it, and we'll and, you know, and there's a few pitfalls you've got to watch out for, and we'll talk through that in detail. Yeah. This is clearly something that is, shaping a lot of operations and services for telcos, but I also want to highlight just how at a broader level network virtualization has become incredibly popular for businesses big and small across a lot of different industries. I've got some more research here I wanna highlight. This is from Spiceworks. They did some twenty twenty research where they interviewed five hundred and thirty IT makers in businesses across North America and Europe. And their research found that these IT leaders believe that within the next two years, we're going to see double digit growth in the use of desktop application, network storage, and data virtualization. So they're pretty confident that this growth is only getting started and is going to expand exponentially here over the next several years, but I'm wondering if that growth is being seen in the same way for telcos. So is that optimism there that virtualization has yet to really hit and there's still this giant growth path for how virtualization is going to impact telcos, or has the majority of that virtualization already happened for telcos? Give us that lay of the land. Very, very good question. It's there are two different speeds. In the in the in the IT, and this is my view, in in the IT world, there are a lot of functions and capabilities that are cloud native. In a lot of the functions that's probably done in the telco world, they are cloud based. That is a very subtle difference because, you know, cloud based functions do require a certain amount of purpose built hardware and things to be scaled up. A lot of the functions that are being deployed in the IT world are cloud native. They could go on anybody's cloud and you can pop them in and they scale up and they work. The challenge in the infrastructure side, in the telecommunication side, is that a lot of the functions are distributed. The end capability entities could be a cell tower, be a small cell, your Wi Fi access point, they're all distributed. So there's only certain amount of things that could be centralized and therefore virtualized. So for telco field to get to the true cloud native implementation of all of these capabilities are going to take time. But there are certain elements to answer your question of has the virtualization happened already? Most elements that are centralized have already been virtualized. Are cloud based, but I wouldn't say they are cloud native. When they are truly cloud native is when you can actually scale things up, move things to closer to the user and scale up. And you know, for example, content. Content could be cached, you know, closer to the user to increase responsiveness. In the industrial verticals where you need to reduce the latency significantly, user plane can be brought right to the edge of a factory, for example, or a complex of buildings. So there are things that can be done, but it all comes down to how much of this capability can be aggregated and centralized closer to the user. At that point, you can virtualize it. So, it's a yes or no answer, Daniel. Yeah. Like most things, you know, it's not just black and white. There's always gray area with these kinds of buzzwords and disruptions. But, you know, I guess to lean into some of the positives here or, you know, some of the more straight forward wins that come from virtualization, what would you say are some of those positives, some of those wins that network virtualization is already bringing to telco operations today, especially as they're virtualizing aspects of their networks that have to handle the cutting edge wireless networks that we see transforming telcos, five g, Wi Fi six, six e? Break that down for us. Oh, that's a so the the best vertical to look at is to look at the enterprise space. And in the enterprise space, the demands across multiple enterprises, they vary. Some of them require high bandwidth. Some of them require massive connectivity to a whole bunch of small devices. And so the use cases that you need to support would vary. If you, as an operator, if you were to have the same hardware fabric that you're going to have, your hardware is the same, it's the same general purpose hardware that you can deploy to both of these use cases, but the resource utilization would vary. Then for you, you've now shifted it completely to a software model where you now have the ability to just, you know, spin off two different, you know, recipes, so to speak, two different cakes, if you want, using different amounts of the recipe. So that is the benefit of it. It's that if you have the same general purpose hardware and looking at the enterprise vertical where people are requiring different things off of you, the hardware remains the same. You now can spin up the the scale up and the scale down because it's now a software driven model. And the enterprise space will drive a lot of that. Yeah. I think to your point that necessity of scale in enterprise applications really showcases the power of virtualization, in a lot of ways, makes the case for other applications. But scaling also poses its own challenges, especially when you're dealing with the convergence of networks and you're dealing with virtualizing various different product offerings, as well as different, bands of spectrum. So has scaling virtualization in your eyes been difficult as the scope of converged networks also expands? I guess connect the impact of those two buzzwords on telco growth for us. Sure. Now that all the things that I talked about, there is also a significant element that I did not talk about, and which is the systems integration piece. When you start looking at providing a dynamic network that provides a seamless connectivity tissue that scales up and scales down, a lot of the operators need to consider the cost of systems integration because now you've gone from the previous purpose built hardware where you had a single vendor and a single technology providing one type of service to it's all transcending, it's transparent. So you have different vendors, different software modules, different pieces of equipment coming together now running on general purpose hardware in a converged platform, so to speak. Then as the operator, you now have to bear the cost and the challenge of managing all of this and integrating all of these elements together to provide you the end user that seamless experience. That systems integration cost can be significantly high. And the cost is both in terms of the manpower and the software licenses, the resources that you need to pull in to do all this work. Because to maintain a reliable network that provides all of these services is in the credo of every person that's in this business. And so there are some challenges over there. So when you take network convergence, where you have the seamless experience and you provide it over virtualized platforms together, the glue that keeps it all together is your systems integration. And as a technology or a connectivity company, any connectivity company has to bear the systems integration cost in mind, which is where some of the skepticism comes about, about is virtualization really going to give a lot of benefit, a cost benefit? You've got to understand, you know, bare metal hardware may cost a little bit more. General purpose hardware could cost a little less. Software might be a little cheaper, but now you have that glue to consider the whole systems integration costs and things might come to be a wash. But it's an area that a lot of people are actively working on right now. I think that, you know, when the dust settles, when everybody's converged, when all networks are virtual and the experiences are seamless, then we'll know, you know, what was the best path forward. I would have to agree there. I think so. And I guess to wrap up, PJ, I want to, I guess, highlight any potential inefficiencies or, roadblocks or just hiccups, right, that telcos have experienced as, excuse me, as they've tried to virtualize their network. So give us a lay of the land there. Where are you seeing telcos perhaps miss the mark, create more inefficiencies for themselves in the virtual transformations of their networks today? And why do we see those inefficiencies, and also what are some strategies to avoid them? Great question. I think a lot of that, you know, this is why chasing buzzwords has to be something you got to proceed with caution. In a lot of the instances when you believe, you know, hey, you jump on the hype bandwagon and you pursue something without considering all the consequences, there are challenges that you will overcome, that you run into, that you must overcome. Some networks, and looking at some international examples, telco providers are organically positioned to virtualize things. Infrastructure is built to handle the virtualization and some of the latency and some of the bandwidth demands that the underlying connectivity elements already have. An operator could have a ton of fiber distributed across the network connecting to almost people's homes. And they run massive, you know, hardwrap server farms. So for them, a virtualizing connectivity capability becomes easy. Now, if you were to then look at somebody in North America that has to provide connectivity to rural operators where, you know, you don't have fiber running to every single tower or every single radio installation, How would you virtualize elements and the extent to which you can virtualize and converge the networks becomes limited. So the challenge that you must overcome is to be very grounded in what can be achieved and what's pragmatic, because sometimes chasing a buzzword for the sake of it would keep you blind to some of the practical challenges that you have to overcome. And manifest in so many different ways. And that's something that people are, I believe the industry is cognizant of. And while we continue to look at clever ways of doing things, I believe a lot of their leadership in the different organizations are very mindful of these challenges and proceeding with caution. And the idea is to let it happen organically with the best assets you have. I think that's really the best summary here is when we're dealing with convergence or we're dealing with virtualization, letting it happen naturally and sort of laying the cards out on the table top to bottom, whether that's operationally with the leadership vision, with the right technology, strategic plan, to allow it to grow naturally and organically and and really revitalize those systems and processes and the experience of the end user in a way that doesn't implement a lot of friction, that's really the name in the game. Right? And so it almost sounds counterintuitive to say, oh, you have to you have to build it to make sure that it then grows organically. But, basically, it just means that we have to go into network convergence. We have to go into network virtualization, really understanding the scope of it, why it's important, and not just saying, oh gosh. Well, everyone else is converging. Let's converge. That's playing into the buzzword. That's, I think, missing the scope of what really makes these buzzwords buzzy in the industry today. Right. Right. Absolutely. Great great summary. Well, I feel like we've both wrapped up our thoughts on the subject. So I think that does it for our buzzwords conversation. Thank you again for your thought leadership here breaking down network convergence network virtualization. Again, we've been chatting with PJ Jaya Wardner. He is senior director and head of five g r and d and fixed wireless access for Charter Communications, which is the parent company for Spectrum. PJ, it's really been a pleasure. And if folks wanna find out more about some of the work you're doing in cutting edge wireless deployments or just hear some more of your thought leadership. How can they get in touch or how can they learn more? Open to open a conversation and, you know, through through Amphenol and and these discussions, I'm always open to just having a chat. I love it. Alright. PJ, it's, again, been a pleasure. Thank you so much for joining us, and, we'll chat again soon. Absolutely. Thank you, Daniel. And thank you everyone for listening to another episode of Wavelengths on Amphenol Broadband Solutions Podcast. If you like what you heard and want to engage with some more ABS content, make sure that you're heading to our website, Amphenol Broadband dot com. Again, Amphenol Broadband dot com, and make sure that you're subscribing to wavelengths on Apple Podcasts and Spotify for all of our old episodes and, of course, notifications when we drop some new engaging thought leadership. I'm your host, Daniel Littwin, the voice of b two b, and we'll catch you next time on Wavelengths.