March 12, 2025 • 57 mins
Peter Jarich, Head of GSMA Intelligence at GSMA Intelligence, and Chetan Sharma of Chetan Sharma Consulting joins Leonard Lee of neXt Curve to recap the mobile industry event of the year, Mobile World Congress 2025.
This year, MWC drew over 109,000 attendees and almost 3,000 exhibitors who packed the Fira Gran Via for another post-pandemic year to match an attendance record set in 2019. So, what mattered at the otherwise overwhelming event?
Peter, Chetan, and Leonard touch on the following topics:
- Key impressions from the event. What was different from last year?
- What were the key themes for MWC 2025?
- What technologies and applications stood out at MWC 2025?
- Peter, Chetan, and Leonard give their takes on:
- Metaverse,
- Generative AI & Agentic AI
- AI-RAN
- Open Gateway & Aduna
- 5G & 6G
- Private 5G
- Open RAN and Squid Game Season 1
- Geopolitics of global telco
- Where does the trio think that we will land at MWC 2026?
Remember to like, subscribe to the neXt Curve reThink YouTube channel. Also, follow neXt Curve by subscribing at www.next-curve.com.
Check out Chetan Sharma, his research and thought leadership at www.chetansharmaconsulting.com.
Check out Peter Jarich and GSMA Intelligence at www.gsmaintelligence.com.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:06):
Next curve.
Leonard Lee (00:09):
Hey everybody.
Welcome to this next curverethink podcast episode, where
we break down the latest techand industry events and
happenings into the insightsthat matter.
And I'm Leonard Lee, executiveanalyst at next curve.
And in this episode, we will betalking about the highlights and
the hot takes from MWC 2025,which took place last week in
(00:34):
Barcelona or Barcelona.
And that I think that's correct,right?
Barcelona, Spain, with over 109,000 people.
In attendance over four days oftelco slash mobile industry
madness.
And I'm joined by two very,very, very, very special guests,
(00:57):
the remarkable Peter George ofGSMA intelligence and the
legendary Chetan Sharma ofChetan Sharma consulting
gentlemen.
How's it going?
I'm
Peter Jarich (01:12):
just trying to figure out, I think two and a
half of those varies are forChetan, and I get a half of that
variable.
I'll
Leonard Lee (01:16):
take my
Peter Jarich (01:18):
half,
Leonard Lee (01:18):
that's fine.
I had to wake him up because helooks like he's about to fall
asleep, so.
It's early, it's early on yourcoast, folks.
Yeah, it is.
It is.
And, but, you know, Chetan workshard.
He gets up at, you know, likeone of those guys that wakes up
at 4 a.
m.
in the morning, right?
Chetan.
Come on.
Oh, shit.
(01:39):
Yes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So before we get started, pleaseremember to like share and react
and comment on this episode.
Also subscribe here on YouTubeon Buzzsprout.
Listen to us on your favoritepodcast platform.
Opinions and statements by myguests are entirely their own
and don't reflect mine or thoseof next curve.
We're doing this to provide anopen forum for discussion and
(02:02):
debate.
We hope you find the programinformative.
And fun.
And with that, gentlemen, let'sdive into this because there's a
lot to cover.
I'm really looking forward toyour takes and your insights
from this year's event, which,by the way, I thought was
fabulous.
why don't we start off withthis, your impression in one
word.
(02:23):
Or maybe a pair of words, howwould you describe this year's
event?
Chetan Sharma (02:29):
You go, Peter.
Peter Jarich (02:30):
I'm going to say frank and honest.
and what I mean is, you know,Frank, I'll just say, if I said
Frank, people might think who'sFrank, who is this Frank guy?
Peter's talking about.
so that's why I said, I mean,it's interesting because.
If you looked at some of thecomments right off the keynotes,
right?
I think some of them were like,Oh, it feels like groundhog day.
(02:50):
We've been saying the samethings over and over and over,
especially around regulation,especially in the state of the
industry.
But the tone was different,right?
The tone was much more of like,it was, it was much more direct.
And I think no matter where youfit on the political spectrum, I
think that we know that the U Sadministration in some ways has
sort of enabled a more directFrank.
(03:13):
Sort of less polite tenor ofconversation.
And I think you saw thatreflected, right?
You saw that reflected in a lotof the conversations of, okay,
folks, this is the way it is.
Or even the conversations aroundgeopolitics weren't so much like
one side says, Oh, China's moreinterested in domestic issues.
And there's no real issue withthe, with other, the U.
S.
and the response not being,well, I think we have a
(03:36):
different view.
Another response was just veryclear.
No, you're wrong.
And here's why.
Right?
So I think it is.
It was refreshing in that, insome ways, in that there were a
lot of conversations that werereally important conversations,
and they were still polite andgenuine, but also a little bit
more direct than I saysometimes.
Leonard Lee (03:53):
Interesting.
Chetan?
Chetan Sharma (03:55):
Not to just add to what Peter said, but I think
it was much more.
pragmatic, more grounded inreality on a number of fronts.
Geopolitics is one of them, but6G, for example, is another one.
AI was all over the place.
You gotta have at least onething that is on the hype scale.
So AI was that thing this year.
but I always love going to theshow because it just gives you,
(04:16):
you know, in four days, a goodgrounding of what's to come, and
get a sense of, where theindustry is at, and you can
just, eek out a lot of pearls ofwisdom from just talking to
friends and colleagues that youcannot do any other way.
Leonard Lee (04:30):
Yeah, these are great ways of describing the
event.
This year.
I agree with both of you.
I guess I will add present.
and I say that versus thefuture, because last year it was
future 1st and I really I didn'tI thought that was not a good
focus or a good theme for theevent.
I was just glad to see thatthere was a lot of focus on the
(04:52):
present when you talk to, a lotof the companies again,
colleagues and friends.
In the industry, there's thisdesire to get back to what is it
that we need to do to move theball.
And I thought that was verycomforting.
I think it's a really gooddirection for GSMA as a whole.
And so, hey, big thumbs up.
Proof that I'm not like a DebbieDowner all the time.
(05:13):
I just want the industry, likeall of us wanted to go in a
better direction.
And I think GSMA this year andall the, partner members, they
did the right thing.
And you're absolutely right andyou know that they had to
anticipate this before.
A lot of the geopolitical.
turmoil, was stirred up.
So, that was a good call.
(05:35):
So, yeah, really great stuff.
So, gentlemen, what were some ofthe themes that stuck out for
you this year as you wereroaming the halls and, you know,
giving interviews or moderatingpanels?
And Peter, what else do you do?
You do a lot of this stuff,right?
You're managing a friggin teamof like, massive
Peter Jarich (05:54):
I go where I'm told.
no, it's I had this conversationwith some folks saying, in
theory, the way I set upmeetings and do what I do should
be different now that I run ateam versus when I was in But I
always, I do the exact samething I did probably 20 years
ago.
I schedule a bunch of meetings.
Don't pay attention to wherethey are.
So go from Hall 6 to Hall 8 toHall 1 back to back.
(06:15):
so I would say I think Chetanhit a good one.
6G, interesting 6Gconversations, not as many as I
expected, particularly aroundquestions around geopolitical
concerns and fragmentation oftechnologies.
A lot of vertical conversations.
I think if there was one subtheme that I thought was really
interesting, it was, criticalcommunications and defense as a
(06:38):
standout growing, verticalinterest, if you wandered the
halls enough, you saw the folksfrom the DOD there, we all know
that the U.
S.
Department of Defense is,looking at some of these
commercial technologies inparticularly interesting ways, a
lot of discussion around networkresilience to protect against
either manmade or naturaldisasters.
(06:58):
and really, We know those otherverticals that we've been
talking about, ports, mining,utilities, you've seen some of
those, but I think the bubblingup of defense was a really
interesting one that kind ofcaptured the interest in pulling
verticals in, the monetizationof those networks, things like
Open RAN, but then also, thegeopolitical angle.
(07:20):
So I think it was aninteresting, encapsulation of
all those things.
Chetan Sharma (07:25):
yeah, for me, the thing that really stood out,
probably from day zero, justlike Saturday, Sunday was the
geopolitics.
I think if you sit back and say,what are the ground truths that
I didn't know, coming into theshow?
geopolitics has been an overhangfor a long time, but the way it
(07:46):
accelerated and permeated inevery conversation, behind the
scenes, was a bit striking.
and for obvious reasons.
beyond the tariff, discussion, Ithink there is, something
brewing that could be apermanent reset in how alliances
are formed.
And we just don't know whereit's going to all settle, but
there is the questions beingasked are very different than
(08:07):
what they were 2345 weeks ago.
So that was something new anddifferent.
NTN, as expected, is surfacingup as, kind of a must have
feature.
There is still a distancebetween, Having the feature and
monetization, but NTN has jumpedas something that every operator
(08:28):
is looking at every country islooking at the lack of 60 or I
guess, there's not a lot abouttalk about 60, but what will
lead to 60?
Like what's the 5G advancedpath?
What features are going to bethere that lead to 60?
so I think that's the rightdiscussion.
So we focus on here and now, andas you said, and then figure out
(08:50):
what the road map is for 6G.
And we, because I had this fearof, getting sucked into the 3GPP
vortex, and not really steppingback and saying, let's learn
from what happened with 5G.
and focus more on the economicsof these solutions and the
infrastructure rollout versusjust blindly following one
(09:11):
another off the cliff.
Peter Jarich (09:12):
it is worth noting.
I think maybe some of the, andagain, I was surprised on the 6G
front because, last year we hadconversations around, let's make
sure 6G remains a globalstandard.
You would think a year laterthat seems even more in peril,
given where we are in the world.
I was surprised to think aboutmore.
We all know this week in Korea,it's the big 6G a thon, right?
(09:34):
And there's a lot ofconversations, a lot of
discussions.
So that may have stolen some ofthe thunder perhaps, and maybe
siphoned off some of thediscussion.
But yeah, it was, refreshing.
I don't think any of us missedthe 6G conversation.
I can't say I was actuallymissing it, but yeah, it wasn't
quite there.
Leonard Lee (09:50):
I think there was a, like you mentioned practical
before Chetan, a practicalgrounded focus on 5g, a lot of
talk about essay, at least inthe discussions that I've had,
and, I spent a lot of time attheir Ericsson booth.
And so, you know, as we allknow, and we've been to their
events, 1 of the things thatthey're looking to do is really
move the ball.
(10:11):
On 5G, even ahead of all the 6Gtalk, I think that those are 2
separate conversations at themoment, because the dilemma
right now is how do we continueto progress 5G where operators
can benefit from.
the, what I call thistechnological backlog that we
have now with 5G as we're movingtoward specification release 19.
(10:35):
I mean, there's all thesefeatures you mentioned features,
right?
All these features that areuntapped.
And so.
you know, 1 of the things that Ithink is important, and I think
you're starting to see thisurgency start to form this year
is the need to tell the storyabout how our operators
(10:56):
pioneering operators like TMobile and others around the
globe leveraging these newcapabilities.
technologies to create newservices and what are some of
these patterns and modalitiesof, monetization that can be
had, right?
Because, this whole monetizationtopic has been such a ridiculous
one.
Quite honestly, yeah.
(11:18):
And and 1 of the things Inoticed is there's this huge gap
between technology andmonetization piece.
There's this big gap that hasn'tbeen addressed and spoken to
very well.
I think we're starting to seepeople talk about it and, I
think that's another hopefuloutcome, of this more grounded
(11:40):
agenda, whether it was intendedor not.
It's just it came off like thatto me of, of mobile and Congress
and what it seems like, Eithersubconsciously or consciously
pursuing, this year andhopefully going forward.
So anyways, I don't know what itis.
Peter Jarich (11:57):
I think it's interesting to your point,
though.
So I think it is tough, right?
I think it's tough because youhave different personas, which
would show up to any show.
So there's some people that arethere want to think about that
bigger transformation and thinkabout how do we actually drive
outcomes and monetize.
There are other people who arethere to talk technology.
(12:18):
But you will always that theywant to understand how we enable
slicing.
It's not their job to figure outhow you make money from it.
So it's always difficult whenyou've got that multi, that sort
of different people there.
But I'll say to your point, thenumber of times I heard people
sort of reference things likethe T priority service and what
T-Mobile was doing as likehere's a great example and we're
actually seeing slicing and thisis kind of cool.
(12:40):
So I think people are, when theysee those good examples.
And that one I think plays toexactly what you're talking
about.
There's a lot of essay.
There seemed like there was aGuarded optimism around SA,
maybe, finally, sort of,potentially, taking off.
and, you know, because we'vebeen talking about it for a
while, and we've seen the slowgrowth, and we know it's what
holds back things like slicing,and we know it's what holds back
(13:02):
a lot of things.
I think it's also holding back5G advanced discussion, because
a lot of operators are going towant to have SA before they do.
Even though it's not requiredfor a lot of 5G advanced
capabilities, a lot of operatorswill want to do it.
So but yeah, I think some ofthose good examples, you're 100
percent right.
We need to see them.
And when they're good ones,people do get excited about
(13:23):
them.
Chetan Sharma (13:25):
some of these features need to be consumable
just because they exist doesn'tmean third parties can just take
advantage of them.
slicing is a great example wherelast year Erickson showed how
slicing was integrated into theSony cameras.
that's a great example of Thethird party not worrying about
the complexity of the technologyis one to consume it and figure
(13:47):
out the pricing and monetizationon their end.
And that's what you need fromthese features.
They need to be exposed in a waythat they are consumable.
Just like an Amazon API, right?
I just have my credit card.
I want this feature.
I put my credit card.
I consume it and that's.
That's the level of simplicity.
It needs to be there, which wasnot there prior to that.
(14:08):
I mean, slicing has been aroundfor some time.
I think we're getting to a pointwhere these features, whether
the operators used for their ownpurpose, like key priority or
network management or congestionmanagement, or you make it
available to the enterprises whocan consume it on demand as
needed on a predictable pricingplan, then it becomes all of a
(14:29):
sudden and you don't have totalk to anybody like you just go
and figure it out on a websiteor through an A.
P.
I.
I think that's when it scales.
If there is too much handholding or too much complexity,
it holds it back.
Leonard Lee (14:41):
Well, yeah, regarding the network slicing,
the way I look at it is more ofan underlying capability.
And if you, as you move towardfive G.
S.
A.
S.
You have the ability toinstitute network slices in a
very dynamic way.
And what that means is that,from a service, perspective, you
can design things that are eventbased or,, condition or context
(15:06):
based.
Right?
So these can be deployed.
Very quickly, they may be highvalue scenarios, but they're not
permanent.
they're ephemeral.
They're there when you need itand then they disappear and then
they're also balanced againstwhatever available capability
and capacity in that particularlocation.
(15:27):
And so, I think that's 1 of thethings that's important for the
industry to understand, because,like, you guys gentlemen have
been saying, Network slicing hasbeen a part of the telco
discourse for a long time.
A lot of people scratching theirheads about, when's all the
hypothetical stuff going tohappen?
oddly, the weird thing abouttechnology is that, you know, it
(15:50):
does realize itself over time.
And I think we're at a differentpoint now where the technology
has matured and you can actuallyrealize the capabilities are
beyond what we had before.
And so I think, a lot of us havebeen dishammered I don't know if
that's the right term.
Disillusioned.
Peter Jarich (16:09):
Yes, it's fine.
It's fine.
Disenamored is a good word.
Disenamored.
Okay, we'll get into thedictionary.
Yeah,
Leonard Lee (16:18):
I was always really bad at the verbal section of the
anyways.
and so there is a bit of aovershooting.
We disregard things like, ah,you're bringing up network
slicing.
We talked about that forever,but there's, there are these new
possibilities.
I think we just need to framethose in the proper way and, I
think that that's the thing thatwe can do going forward is help
(16:39):
people understand what is.
Yeah.
Now this nouveau role of,network slicing and all these
other things that come togetherin compelling new ways.
so anyway,
Peter Jarich (16:49):
I think as much as pragmatic though, and I don't
want to be the negative Nelly orwhatever.
However, you referencedyourself, Leonard, but I, from a
pragmatism standpoint, I saw acouple of times people talk
about things like networkslicing, right?
Network slicing.
And I think taking what you weresaying chatting about making
this stuff consumable, right?
If I think about consumable andI think network slicing, it sort
(17:12):
of leads to a conversation ofnetwork APIs, the open gateway
initiative.
We've seen all everything that'staking place on there and
extension of things like qualityand demand.
Network APIs, big discussion,obviously this year, last year,
we start seeing more and moreoperators getting involved.
Quality on demand, a lot of theinitial work has been done,
(17:33):
around identity, sim swap,fraud, security, things that
are, there's a very clear ROI.
People are looking towardsquality on demand going forward.
Which kind of goes to sort ofthe broader slicing story, but I
had some interestingconversations.
People say yes That's reallythat's really exciting if we can
get to the end of the year withone or two good use cases That's
(17:53):
wonderful.
We need to be patient and andI've heard people talking about
and I think if If you were outthere, and I think you were at
the like Erickson pre brief Theyhad the CEO of Aduna and really
great job explaining sort of thebusiness model It's a look some
analysts asked him about numbersHow much activity do we expect
going forward?
I said, look, we just need to bepatient around this stuff.
(18:14):
This takes time.
Totally appreciate whether it'srolling out quality in a man,
whether it's predicting thefuture on how much activity
we'll see there.
Appreciate the pragmatism of weneed to be patient, but I worry
because no one's patient.
this is not a world where peopleare like, yeah, no, no, I take a
damn.
Heck, you know what?
If you were doing badlyfinancially, I'd be worried, but
(18:36):
you're not, you're making tonsof money.
The industry's in great shape.
Take all the time you need.
That's not the case.
we're not in that space, right?
We're not in a space where telcois, pulling in tons of money.
Right.
We know that, right?
you sit, it's the message youhear in the keynote, the first
keynote of the year, you seethat giant chart that looks like
this and the number that lookslike this shows costs versus
(18:57):
whatever metric, right.
And balancing that against, Oh,don't worry.
We have time to figure this out.
I do worry that.
There sometimes, especially withsome of these new technologies,
there does need to be a littlebit more.
Um, uh, no, I'm at a loss forwords there, Leonard, right?
(19:19):
And I think, we need torecognize the continued urgency
around making some of thesethings work because as much as.
I think we're also in a betterplace where we know how the
hyperscalers are partnering withoperators.
They're also, in many ways, onsome of these things, very
potential competitors, right?
And unless we get things figuredout, right?
(19:41):
Unless the op how many timeshave we talked about a potential
future in which Apple figuresout how to make slicing a
reality?
We know it's in iOS, embeds itin, you know, the app store and
sort of kind of like we saw withdriving the, driving the
narrative on eim, right?
I think there's be a bit of anurgency there of, of making sure
(20:03):
we execute on some of thesecapabilities and a lot of
operators have it.
Don't get me wrong, you saw somuch activity from so many
operators that they get it.
I just think that needs to be astory that, they all understand.
Leonard Lee (20:13):
Well, Chetan, any comment?
I mean, he's making a greatpoint, by the way.
I think it's something that.
Chetan Sharma (20:18):
No, he's spot on.
patience is absolutelywarranted, but also you need a
rapid, I think countries whereall 3 operators or all 4
operators are on the sameplatform.
It's relatively easier to offerthat to the developer community
or the enterprise.
Versus if there's only oneoperator from a country who is
signed up, I think you wouldexpect that those operators in
(20:41):
those countries will make goodprogress and the numbers will
start piling up and at somepoint you have to discuss the
numbers, because, you have to dotrillions of transactions to
make billions from all thisstuff.
And so we just need to see whatpath are we on.
in terms of number oftransactions taking place on a
daily basis, once you have asense of the trajectory, then
(21:02):
you can do basic math, right?
how many operators you add tothis mix, how many more API's
you add to the mix to see ifthere is a hockey car or it's a
steady growth with both in bothcases is fine, but you do need
to show progress on a year oryour basis that so it's
meaningful.
Otherwise, you know, As youmentioned, their competitors,
(21:23):
which probably offer a moreholistic offering, with storage
and compute as well.
And so if developer is thinkingabout a new way of driving some
application, they just want aone stop shop.
They don't want to go forcertain applications for certain
APIs to the operator in certain.
Workloads to the hyperscalersand since so there is the
(21:47):
tension as well as urgency toaddress that.
Leonard Lee (21:50):
my observation is a lot of the stuff is still pretty
well misunderstood.
I wrote a number of pieces inthe run up of MWC about.
Network APIs and Aduna inparticular and it's role as an
exchange.
And so I think you guys aremaking a great point here.
(22:11):
What is this Aduna thing?
And what is an API exchange?
What should we expect of it?
And should it be the same as,let's say a platform.
Right.
But it's not entirely that Ithink 1 of the things that the
Ericsson folks.
And their partners have beentrying to emphasize is that this
is, this is kind of like a semifor profit.
(22:33):
This is like profit to, youknow, to profit enough to
survive or sustain itself typeof model.
And I think that's where we haveto recognize that from a
business, entity perspective,right?
And its role within the broaderecosystem.
But Peter, you're absolutelyright in the bigger picture.
It needs to figure out.
Okay.
(22:53):
what is that large scale valuethat network APIs are going to,
deliver and what is the role ofthe aggregators in these,
network API exchanges in,scaling the markets for, exposed
network functions or,capabilities and, I think trust
(23:14):
is going to be a really hugething.
Guys, look, I don't know if anyof you go to RSAC, but the fear
around AI is palpable.
It's growing because the threatsthat, AI, in particular, gen AI
augmented.
Attacks present is justabsolutely frightening for the
cyber security and cyber trust,community.
(23:36):
And so in simple things liketrust security, I think there's
a huge opportunity for thesenetwork APIs where the operators
are going to be able to, expresstheir, network capabilities and
supporting a lot of.
Trust functions above the leveland so this becomes less of an
(23:57):
ROI thing for, companies, butmore of a huge mismitigation
because literally, I don't thinklike, you know, I look at my
mailbox about 90 percent of thestuff I get now just spam or
some kind of really compellingphishing, email or a prompt to
get engaged in a conversationalphishing.
(24:19):
Chat stream.
I mean, it's outrageous.
Peter Jarich (24:23):
Stop there before you get yourself in trouble.
This doesn't sound like it'sgoing.
I don't know what theseconversations are, but no, I
mean, I think it's, it's, Ithink, I think it's your, I was
about to say I was worried aboutAI before I saw the.
Robotic vacuums that we decidedto give AI and limbs, you know,
not now that they're robotvacuums that can pick things up
(24:45):
and they've got AI.
I was.
Oh, my gosh.
No, but I think the difficultpart is.
Here's where we are.
Two years ago, we had to explainto people why this was
important, right?
We had to explain that, oh,look, a common set of APIs is
better than proprietary APIsbecause it can scale.
I had to explain that.
But now we're in the nittygritty of how does it work, and
(25:06):
how do exchanges work, and whatare the pricing models, and what
are the, and I think to someextent that's what folks like
Aduna are there to help.
Sort out, but it doesn't make itany right.
So it's a much more complicatedon top of that then building the
demand, right?
Going out building that, and Iwork with folks, here internally
at the GSMN We're trying tofigure out how do you build that
(25:27):
demand?
How do you go to potential?
Consumers of this and say,here's why you want this, right?
The social media companies thatin some jurisdictions will get
in trouble if they're serving upsocial media to someone who is
under 16.
So if there's a, if there's asimple way to go and prove this,
(25:49):
but then, and here's the fun,like we have a round table on
network APIs and developers,with a bunch of folks.
Here was an interesting sort ofthing that I had thought of.
The industry has spent youtalked about fishing and that's
there's no joke there, right?
I don't mean to make light ofthat fraud.
That was pretty funny, though.
I don't know about yours, butfraud is a horrible.
(26:11):
I mean, there are all sorts ofhorror stories about people who
lose not only their lifesavings, but in different
economies are finding themselvesbasically part of modern slavery
because they've they fell.
The file of something so this isreally horrible but we spent
years telling people dual factorauthentication and do all these
(26:33):
things what's going to happenwhen now we use api's to make
that more seamless we're goingto have to reeducate people of
well don't worry the operatorhas.
Maybe the operator solved thatby knowing where you are on your
phone.
And so I think it's more thanjust business level
transformation.
It's transformation the way weengage with our operators, which
is really where they should bethe whole time.
(26:54):
They should be in the middle ofthat.
So it's, yeah, I thinkultimately it's a really good
thing.
Leonard Lee (26:57):
any final thoughts on this big topic, Chetan?
Chetan Sharma (27:01):
I think it's to be continued.
Leonard Lee (27:06):
Okay.
All right.
So the next thing I want to dohere is just get your real quick
takes on a number of themesthat, I thought, were pretty
important going in.
I mean, or at least, you know,they're, carry overs from last
year, some of them, but thensome that we anticipated would
be, big things.
this year.
So the 1st thing that I want toask you gentlemen about is the
(27:30):
question that everybody wants toknow.
Okay?
Metaverse.
Okay.
Thank you.
Next topic.
I'm sure in a couple of boothsthere were.
Interesting to go there.
(27:51):
I'm sure there
were a few.
I, did I not see the off side?
Yeah, I know we have to be kind.
All right.
So, the elephant in the room, ifnot the el, just the elephant.
generative AI and agent ai.
What did you guys think?
Chetan Sharma (28:07):
I mean, gen AI transformed into agent AI this
year, and last year it was allabout gen ai.
This year it was all about agentai.
Yeah.
so I mean, AI has been so.
Clearly there's the hype part,but then if you look beyond the
like beneath the surface,especially in,, there are three
areas that have surfaced overthe last year where AI is
(28:30):
making, an impact that it wasnot doing before, one is,
clearly customer service, andthat's the low hanging fruit,
Second is knowledge managementwithin the enterprise.
And so that's not unique totelco.
It's across, all theenterprises.
But the one that where it'sreally starting to make some
dent and it's a verycomplicated, deployment is that
(28:51):
of network management.
How do you automate functions ofan enormously complex, network
and network nodes in a way that,manages congestion?
It does fraud detection, detectsanomalies, solves real time,
issues automatically, energymanagement and so on and so
forth.
So I think there is definitely,progress on that front, because
(29:14):
there are a lot of softwaresolutions to generally hardware
ecosystem and here, both, thetraditional OEMs, but also a
number of startups are taking acrack at it.
And, you know, companies likeOpenga Networks or Aira and
others, are making substantialprogress in how you ingest
(29:35):
network data.
And then turn into a some sortof actionable intelligence in a
closed group manner, which isenormously hard to do.
Yeah, and so there is definitelygood progress in terms of on all
these fronts from the startupsfrom the from the OEMs.
And that's what I'm most excitedabout.
Peter Jarich (29:54):
Yeah, yeah, Peter, I say, I mean.
You can't spell agentic AIwithout Jenny.
I just, uh, yeah, I mean,honestly, Jenny, I know.
So I think, I think what'sinteresting is we always need
something new, right?
You don't want to go anotheryear and say what?
So yeah, agentic AI was the newhotness this year.
(30:18):
Everyone wanted to talk aboutit.
I read a blog post, which Ithink was really spot on where
it said, remember a couple ofyears ago when Gen AI was the
big thing.
And then everyone you talk to,every supplier had gen AI
integrated into their solutions.
They're like, look for the samething for magentic AI.
And you sure, same thing, right?
You saw the number of boothscome talk to us.
We'll develop an agent with you.
We'll develop an agent for you.
(30:38):
And it really did take over, butI think ultimately I think it
took over because the questionis, well, what do we want?
AI to do it.
We want to actually deliver anaction, right?
So I think it is pointing tothat interest there of actually
having a human in the loop insome cases, but actually taking
action where it becomes reallynot whether or not all the
(31:01):
agentic AI we saw was reallyagentic AI or not.
I don't know.
But what I think was more frommy standpoint, I think if we
were looking for something new,Agentic AI was clearly there,
but what I thought was new onthe AI front, which I thought
was more interesting for me, wasthis focus on what we can do
with networks to support AI,right?
Because we know that we've allhad this conversation around AI
(31:24):
for networks versus networks forAI.
And Chen called out like theperfect example of AI for
networks, right?
We're seeing AI being used,network automation, network
optimization.
We're seeing progress there.
That's where a lot of operatorsare focused, but where they
haven't been focused is how dowe need to Invest in and develop
our networks to support futureAI workloads.
We, that's been a discussionpoint that's been out there for
(31:46):
a while.
And of course, all theinfrastructure vendors are going
to want to talk that up.
Hey, you know, make sure you'reinvesting in your network to
support AI.
But I think we saw someinteresting stuff this year from
whether it was like AWS workingwith operators to get their
data.
Just to get their data in place,which is critical or whether it
was the Verizon launch rightbefore MWC focused on edge and
edge workloads and edgeinferencing, whether it's just
(32:08):
people like building outbackbones, I think you're
beginning to see some of thisfocus on as a way to monetize
their networks, recognizing thatAI is going to require certain
capabilities.
And that I thought wasparticularly interesting.
Agentic AI was the buzz, butthis bubbling up of operators
who seem to be investing inplaces that will support AI.
With the potential to monetizewas more encouraging.
Leonard Lee (32:29):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
My observation was, that we wentfrom last year, there was this
notion that generative AI wouldbe able to do things that are
very granular and deep in thenetwork, code generation spit
out, network config files on thefly type of thing.
I think we've.
(32:50):
Moved away from that.
And now, there's a realizationthat you really have to start
from the top down and so doingthings in a longer time scale,
where the general AI tools canhave the opportunity to.
Assist a person in the middle,in making better decisions.
(33:13):
And so it's more of anassistive, copilot type of model
I didn't quite see anybody withthe courage this year to suggest
that you're going to take thisstuff to, level 4, even 3.
Autonomous networks.
and if anybody can actually showme something in production, give
me a call.
(33:34):
give all of us a call, or maybeChetan knows somebody that did
it, but I didn't see anythinglike that this year or anyone
courageous enough to say thatthey've deployed it in
production.
I think generative AI isstarting to, again, get
grounded, the conversation getgrounded whether people know it
(33:54):
or not.
And then the agentic stuff Ithink is really just becoming
augmented or slightly enhancedRPA.
You know, you look at theframework, you look at the
tooling, you look at how narrowthe deployments are in terms of
the actual, application ofgenerative AI.
it's starting to get grounded aswell.
(34:15):
And that's what we can expect inevery hype cycle.
Right?
These technologies land wherethey are actually usable and
these are some of the patterns Istarted to see.
I think we still have the restof the year for the industry to
catch up and, realize that,these are, the valuable,
implementation, patterns, forusing this technology.
Peter Jarich (34:38):
Be careful, Leonard.
Be careful.
so I think you're right.
And it was, I was at CES, I wasin a session around AI and
someone said, Oh, agentic AI isthe big new thing.
Does everyone out there knowwhat it means?
And there's a bunch of peoplelike it's RPA on steroids.
And I was like, Oh, okay.
But what's interesting is, and Ithink we all need to be careful
of this is, is I've been in somany group chats and emails
(35:00):
where someone talks about somenew agentic AI innovation And
then you get like, a dozenresponses going.
Oh, I that's just ml.
I've been doing like I was doingthat 20 years ago with cobalt
and I think you do see this,particularly with folks who've
been around the industry for awhile to sort of, I know we're
all a bit jaded, but we look atthese things and go, oh, that's
(35:20):
not new.
that's machine learning and Iwas doing that in college back
in the yeah maybe not so I thinkand I see that sort of a well
agentic is just RPA it's a greatway to describe it.
But we still need to be open toat least some of this being
innovative or else we're goingto seem old.
We're going to seem old andcranky.
Leonard Lee (35:38):
No, I think that's where the grounding happens.
You know, actually, the oddthing is, as you get older and
more experience, you do seethat, the newer generations
don't know about the old stuffand then things that were
esoteric to the old generation,all of a sudden become a new
thing.
And it's.
(35:59):
That's why I think analysts playan important role, technologists
who have legacy play a role inreminding folks about the
history.
And there's nothing wrong aboutsaying that it's RPA.
AI is an incremental, technologyas much as everyone says that
it's revolutionary.
And it will make things that arealready on the continuum of, AI
(36:23):
evolution, to make, you know,application patterns like RPA
even better and there's nothingwrong with that.
That's great.
But I think the height,narratives suggest something far
more dramatic and outrageousthan what the reality is.
And so, you know, I guess, I, Iwill dare to be dangerous.
Peter Jarich (36:46):
How's that, Peter Wow.
You were, were you doing a NickCage, impression there?
It sounded like it sounded No, Ithink I was Oh my God.
I love you guys.
That was good.
No, I think it is.
I think for me, I think just onthe adjunct conversation, right,
I think you're right, having abit of a history there, because,
(37:07):
you know, what was the one thingthat we didn't see this year?
We did see AI devices.
I mean, don't get me wrong, Ithink DT.
Had their example yet, but lastyear, right?
Oh, that's true.
The big last year.
There was the humane pen that'sright.
That was sort of the big newsand those kind of all went away,
but the reality is Those werejust hardware forms of agentic
ai.
Yeah.
You were supposed to tell yourrabbit, go and make a buy
(37:29):
flowers for my wife.
And it was supposed to go do it,right?
But we weren't quite there yet.
And so I think it is importantto have that sort of history and
go, okay, well maybe next year'sthe year for those devices where
we get agentic AI figured out.
I don't know.
Yeah.
Leonard Lee (37:43):
We'll eventually maybe get there, if it makes
sense.
I think is really what it boilsdown to, now thoughts on private
5g, because last few years,private 5g was supposed to be
sort of this, you know,stimulant for, for the 5g
movement, any thoughts there?
What'd you guys see?
In that regard,
Chetan Sharma (38:04):
you know, kind of steady progress.
from last year, I think they'rein private 5g.
There are two worlds, China andthe rest of the world.
And so in China, it continues tobe on a hockey curve.
the rest of the world is makingsteady progress.
And so the question is, what arethose forms of progress?
you know, operator spectrum,CBRS, and so on and so forth.
And so it's still not at a pointwhere it's at the knee of the
(38:25):
curve.
It's just, you know, you go from10 to 20 deployments, but still
fairly minor stuff in rest ofthe world from a private 5G
point of view, where the realprogress is happening in China
on private 5G front.
Peter Jarich (38:40):
It is, I think, yes, and we saw definitely
picking up.
It is incremental.
You need the solutions in place.
You need a broad ecosystem.
and I think it was always goingto take a while for this to ramp
up.
You need the enterprises.
I think this goes back to, whatyou were saying, it means those
good examples, right?
So as you see those examples.
it becomes much easier for someother enterprise to say, I get
(39:02):
it.
Here's how it fits into what I'mdoing.
And then understand it fits intoevery vertical is neat because
every vertical is different,right?
Manufacturing has a differentrequirement than mining, then a
porch, then public safety, thenwhatever.
Leonard Lee (39:15):
And you know, Chetan, I read your, event
summary, by the way, awesome.
Anybody out there who wants Toread a really nice recap of,
MWC, you know, go to Chetan'sLinkedIn profile.
he has that posted as anewsletter.
I'm sure you're going to have iton your website as well.
(39:36):
But you mentioned somethingabout the reluctance or I don't
recall how you described it, butit was along the lines of
enterprises are reluctant orcautious about approaching.
Chetan Sharma (39:46):
I think what I was, talking about is the
operators being reluctant to goafter the enterprise market,
Leonard Lee (39:51):
the
Chetan Sharma (39:54):
way they should.
I think the big part of money wehave been saying since, the
start of 5G is the enterprisemarket.
And I think only China hascracked that nut.
and other operators are just,not quite there yet as to how
they want to approach thatmarketplace.
should they do it themselves?
Should they go through thechannels, through SIs and so on
(40:15):
and so forth?
So I see a reluctance, which isborn out of, should we build
this?
First, this capability and thengo to the market or organically
grow it.
And so that is, taking time.
whereas in China, all threeoperators are just hitting the
road.
Leonard Lee (40:33):
the other thing, that I'd like to get your takes
on, AI ran, you kind of hinted alittle bit about it, Peter, but
what were your observationsabout AI ran MWC?
I know it's a rather new topicbecause AI ran alliance was
introduced just last year, or atleast it formed last year.
(40:55):
But where do you guys think weare with AI RAN, how's that
conversation, shaping up?
Peter Jarich (41:01):
Yeah, I think there's a lot of questions about
what it means, right?
So I think when it formed lastyear, to some extent, there was
some, and they did a really goodjob.
I think if you pay attention towhat the AI RAN Alliance was
doing, and they've grown theirnumbers for a reason, because,
people see that connection, but,I think there was some
suspicion.
Right, because of the variousdifferent use cases they called
(41:21):
out, one of them is, run your AIworkloads on the same compute
that you'd run as you're doingRAN and AI the same.
And when you're not doing yourRAN, you could do AI stuff.
I think there was a bit of asuspicion of, is this just a way
to sell me more chipsets andsell GPUs?
Wait, is this just NVIDIAsaying, you need to buy more
GPUs, and I'm going to give youmore, I'm going to explain to
you other reasons why you needto buy GPUs and a way to grow
(41:45):
the market.
And so I think there was a bitof a suspicion there.
And also, are we ready, primetime, for running these RAN
workloads on GPUs?
What I think is interesting is,a year later, I think people
have sort of understood more ofeverything that this means,
right, which is part of whatChetan was saying, using AI to
improve our RAN operations,right, embedding AI into what
(42:08):
we're doing in the RAN toimprove that.
And that's obviously goingforward towards 6G.
some of those use cases of howwould I run RAN on GPUs.
but also recognizing that'spossibly a bit all of the above
as I evolved my network.
And here was an interestingexample that just talking with
someone, this is for anyone whohasn't been done to see part of.
(42:29):
I think that the value of beingthere is analysts that you have
conversations that things makesense.
But I was talking with a bigoperator who is trying to think
about their enterprise strategy.
Right.
And the first part of most ofthese enterprise strategies
involve things like, putting aserver on prem.
Right.
And then you do some of thatserver.
And they're a big proponent ofvirtualized RAN.
So, hey, so I'm going to put theserver in the enterprise, run
(42:50):
some RAN workloads on it.
Now, in the enterprise, they maynot need to be running that RAN
with the same level ofredundancy or the same level of
capacity as you would in theoutdoors.
So if you do have a server thatyou've deployed in the
enterprise as part of yourenterprise 5G strategy, and
you're running RAN on it, andyou have spare capacity, Well,
then maybe it makes sense to usethat same capacity to do some AI
(43:12):
things, right?
And when you think about it likethat, and you connect those
dots, then people go, Oh, okay.
So yeah, I could see how thiscould all fit together.
So I think as people understandwhat AI RAN means, everything
from optimizing the RAN to doingmultiple different workloads.
AI for ran, ran for AI, AI onran, whatever, again, same
(43:32):
conversation before, it takes awhile for people to get, but it
makes sense in some instances,and now we just need to see
where those instances are andhow they play out.
Does any of that make sense?
Yeah,
Leonard Lee (43:44):
yeah.
So yes, it did make sense.
So congratulations, Peter.
Chetan Sharma (43:52):
So, it's, quite interesting at the macro level,
when Jensen was talking about asovereign AI, I think, that
pretty much defines how the twocamps are progressing.
So countries who have believedin sovereign AI, given what's
happening with geopolitics, Ithink in those countries,
They're also the hyperscalersand not that deeply present.
(44:14):
operators play a role in datacenters.
I think those places the air andis getting traction first
because there are multiple waysto justify the investment,
building your own data centerusing that I.
Capacity for your own developersin the country, keeping your
data in house, keeping yourmodels in house and so on and so
(44:35):
forth.
And so Indonesia, Japan, Korea,India, some of the Nordic
countries.
So those are the first movers inthe space where, the
hyperscalers are deeply present,like Western Europe or North
America.
there is a hesitation and a waitand see approach in terms of
figuring out.
Well, if I build this fabric andI don't really have a data
(44:58):
center business to justify it,then will I be able to create
demand or not?
Let's keep the discussion aroundwhether running ran workloads on
GPU makes sense or not.
Just from a pure business pointof view, can you create enough
demand for the process?
Other workloads that's supposedto be run on the GPUs.
(45:19):
And so there is some hesitationfrom operators.
They want to wait and see beforethey decide one way or another.
Leonard Lee (45:27):
Yeah, the way I looked at it, as this whole,
maturity or evolutionary curvethat you describe Peter in your
earlier comments I think that1st phase of A.
I.
N.
ran is something that.
Is relevant today.
(45:48):
Everything else I think is toohypothetical, especially the
thesis on, the monetization of,access GPU or available GPU
capacity at any given time.
There's a lot of technical gapsthere that need to be bridged.
I think operators and theindustry eventually, and this is
probably going to happen nextyear, are going to realize,
(46:10):
look, there are too many bitsand pieces that are not there to
get us to, the fourth state ofAI, or the fifth.
but that 1st 1 is reallyinteresting.
It has very little to do withGPU.
It's more about how do we applyvarious techniques from the
radio all the way to, let's saythe Rick or the S.
(46:32):
M.
O.
in, driving some optimizationsmore, let's say.
Optimized sleep functions and,power management, like those
simple, boring stuff thatactually has huge impact.
There was another thing that,oh, geez.
I wish I recall.
yeah, there's like fleetmanagement concepts as well.
Right where you can useadvanced, AI techniques to
(46:54):
manage a fleet of, cell sites.
So that, you are using.
Your backup power to, run yourcell sites during peak rate
hours, and then recharging atnight at lower charging time,
(47:15):
windows in the day or theevening, I thought, something
simple like that was awesome.
And you're looking holisticallyat the whole.
system and you're applying AI ina very, very ingenious way,
actually, that has outsizedimpact in terms of cost savings,
(47:36):
just beyond the efficiency of,of, you know, the ran itself.
Right.
It's just literally a out of thebox thinking, really cool
solution.
And it's something that I saw atthe Ericsson booth.
so those are my thoughts onthat.
I kind of think that, AI RAN isgoing to go the way of Open RAN.
So given that I am the inventorof Open RAN Squid Game.
(47:59):
Let's talk about that for amoment.
What happened to Open RAN?
Peter Jarich (48:09):
Oh, sorry, I froze.
My screen froze.
I didn't hear the question.
Uh, Chetan, you answer, becauseI didn't hear the question.
Chetan Sharma (48:21):
Open RAN, the, It's like, whatever it's not a
defined thing.
It can be whatever you want itto be.
And that has been the problemfrom the start.
I always felt that Open RANmissed the 5G cycle because it
came in probably a couple ofyears too late.
And by that time, a lot of theprominent operators had already
(48:44):
Figured out the architecturesand roadmaps and so trying to
fit that in into that discussionhas always been challenging and
operational part that Open RANplayers have minimized Over the
years is the toughest part toovercome You know when you go
talk to people who run thesenetworks on a day to day basis,
(49:06):
they don't want to get anythingtouched by A plethora of vendors
in the name of efficiency, likeif you are gaining 10 percent
efficiency, 20 percentefficiency, but operationally
you're going to go down 30%,like it all nets out.
So the challenge for Open RANis, you need, one or two players
who take on the burden ofputting it all together and be
(49:28):
the interface to the operator torun the networks in these
various markets.
Unless you have that system inplace, Open RAN kind of falls
apart.
Like, if you have 20 vendors Andmaybe two lead vendors, how
invariably something will gowrong.
How do you go about debuggingthe problem, A, and B, who do
you point to, to fix it?
(49:49):
Who, who gets penalized for thatoutage and so forth?
So the operational things havenever been like streamlined or
well understood.
And I think that has been theundoing of the Open RAN
principle, as it was statedearly on, right?
Now Open RAN has morphed intosomething else, like either, one
player Open RAN or whatever itmight be, it become into 6G.
(50:14):
So the notion of, openinterfaces is a valid one and a
useful one, for the ecosystem.
But how you operationalize OpenRAN is where it gets tricky.
that has been a challenge withOpen RAN.
Peter Jarich (50:26):
Now I thought you were going to take us in a
different direction, Leonard,but I would agree that AI RAN is
going to go the way of Open RANin that it's just going to
become a background thing thatexists, and maybe the terms will
morph and it will mean somethingdifferent, but it's just going
to be there and we won't talkabout it.
I had a conversation with asmall software supplier that
develops RAN stacks.
they sell into a lot ofdifferent vertical industries.
(50:47):
And they said, we don't talkOpen RAN.
We interoperate with everyone.
the concept of the basic idea ofwhat's going on with Open RAN.
Now, would there be a market forus if there hadn't been a big
push on Open RAN?
Maybe not.
And so the concept that Open RANwas going for is sort of alive
and strong, whether or not weuse the term.
Another comment I was talkingabout.
I'm talking to the bd guy wassaying i'd never talk open rent,
(51:10):
They deliver silicon, right?
You know ran silicon small smallplayers supporting the
particularly on the radio sideof things and said look i'd
never talk about open ran Andthe marketing guys like I do,
it's like, well, yeah, that'sbecause you're trying to
highlight what we do and peopleget it.
It may not always be exactlyopen, ran compliant, but what
they want to know is, will youwork with different baseband
providers?
(51:30):
Will you work with different,you know, radio, like, will you
fit into an open solution?
And I think AI ran willprobably, I think you're right.
It may go the same way where.
Maybe it means different things,but the concept of integrated AI
into the way we operate theradio access network and the way
we run things, I think will bethere, whether or not it fits
those exact terminologies.
I think same thing with OpenRAN, right?
(51:52):
I think, yeah, it's going to besingle vendor.
In some cases, it might beecosystem.
In some cases, it may notactually be Open RAN.
Right.
You don't need to do, I think agood example is you're talking
to SMO and RIC, right?
You don't, I mean the SMO andRIC, I mean the RIC is an Open
RAN construct.
Yeah.
It exists, but you don't needOpen RAN to have a RIC.
(52:13):
you can institute a RIC withoutan Open RAN network.
Those two things are separate.
At the same time, It was bornout of Open RAN, and I think
it's a good example of like, wemay not talk about Open RAN in
the same capital O, it might besmall O Open RAN, not capital O,
but the basic concepts I thinkare, you know, that's what's
(52:34):
going to have the impact on themarket.
Leonard Lee (52:36):
Yeah, I totally agree with you on that last bit.
I'm a big fan of the SMO, andthe RIC, especially the non real
time.
I think it's more aboutselectively interoperable ran
versus open.
Right?
It's like, what kind of toolsand do you want to use what
level of interoperability?
(52:56):
What set of.
Of, open interfaces and where atwhat level, that's basically
what it's going to boil down to.
And it's going to be specific toeach of the operators because
each of
Peter Jarich (53:09):
them.
that's just a really badmarketing term, selectively
interoperable ran coalition.
Right.
Selectively.
I mean, that has marketing allover.
But you're right.
I mean, It'll work in some butyou're right.
I mean, that's the thing.
it's not sexy, but it's right.
Leonard Lee (53:24):
We can start it next year.
Yes.
So, okay.
To wrap up gentlemen reallyquickly, where do you think
we're going to land next time ornext year?
where are we going to land at M.
W.
C.
2, 026.
Quick thoughts for our audience.
Say more.
Peter Jarich (53:44):
I think we'll still more.
Leonard Lee (53:45):
All right.
That was easy.
Chetan Sharma (53:47):
I think I will continue to be the dominant
theme next year as well.
Probably more NPN, discussions,more, alignment, hopefully less
geopolitics next year, but
Leonard Lee (53:57):
Okay.
So here's mine.
I think next year, insteadgrappling with global first,
because of the geopoliticalchallenges.
How does the mobile industrystick together and not become so
(54:18):
fragmented that we lose all thebenefits of all these years of
trying to come together andcreate common standards,
interoperability, all thatstuff.
I think that's going to be areal.
big topic just because, likewhat we got, we've been saying,
actually, collectively, I think,through this session, which, by
the way, gentlemen, I think isfriggin awesome.
I love you guys.
(54:38):
I want you to know that.
I love you guys, uh, we lovethat.
Hey, that that's what we'regoing to have to deal with.
And I think through the courseof the year, the 3 of us and the
analyst community are going tobe really challenged with
questions.
And, a lot of the industry isgoing to be looking for
guidance.
And so hopefully we'll have somefurther conversations and
(55:01):
debates about that.
Gentlemen, thank you so much.
this is really great.
Peter is great to, you know,have you on again.
Peter Jarich (55:09):
Bug me, bug me anytime.
Leonard Lee (55:10):
Yeah.
And Chet, no, of course, always.
I mean, this guy's like frigginglegendary, right?
He's like, I'm going to see youat GTC.
Yeah, are we going to hang outor are we going to avoid each
other like we did?
Chetan Sharma (55:23):
I don't know how it happened.
Maybe it's a smaller, smallerset up.
So we'll run it through.
Yeah.
Leonard Lee (55:28):
Yeah.
That, that, that was reallytragic that we didn't bump into
each other.
Peter Jarich (55:33):
I'll send my digital twin.
I'll send my digital twin toGTC.
So you can, you can meet him.
You can meet up with them.
Leonard Lee (55:38):
Cool.
Yeah.
And you can hang out withJensen's, you know, 1 billion
digital twins.
but, yes, everyone.
Hey, thanks for listening.
We appreciate you.
but watching this very specialpodcast recap of MWC 2025, make
sure to contact and connect withmy guests, Peter Jaric and,
(56:00):
Chetan Sharma.
I suggest that you reach out tothem on LinkedIn.
That's probably like the safestway these days and find out more
about Peter's work at GSMAintelligence at www.
gsmaintelligence.
com.
And of course, the illustriousChetan Sharma and his wonderful
work at Chetan SharmaConsulting.
(56:24):
Just go and check out all hisgreat content at www.
chetansharma.
com.
Consulting.
com.
And then also please subscribeto our podcast and it will be
featured in the next curveYouTube channel.
Check out the audio version onbuzzsprout and also subscribe to
the next curve research portalat www dot.
(56:47):
Next dash curve.
com for the tech and industryinsights that matter.
And we will see you next year torecap MWC 2026.
Next curve.
Leonard Lee (00:09):
Hey everybody.
Welcome to this next curverethink podcast episode, where
we break down the latest techand industry events and
happenings into the insightsthat matter.
And I'm Leonard Lee, executiveanalyst at next curve.
And in this episode, we will betalking about the highlights and
the hot takes from MWC 2025,which took place last week in
(00:34):
Barcelona or Barcelona.
And that I think that's correct,right?
Barcelona, Spain, with over 109,000 people.
In attendance over four days oftelco slash mobile industry
madness.
And I'm joined by two very,very, very, very special guests,
(00:57):
the remarkable Peter George ofGSMA intelligence and the
legendary Chetan Sharma ofChetan Sharma consulting
gentlemen.
How's it going?
I'm
Peter Jarich (01:12):
just trying to figure out, I think two and a
half of those varies are forChetan, and I get a half of that
variable.
I'll
Leonard Lee (01:16):
take my
Peter Jarich (01:18):
half,
Leonard Lee (01:18):
that's fine.
I had to wake him up because helooks like he's about to fall
asleep, so.
It's early, it's early on yourcoast, folks.
Yeah, it is.
It is.
And, but, you know, Chetan workshard.
He gets up at, you know, likeone of those guys that wakes up
at 4 a.
m.
in the morning, right?
Chetan.
Come on.
Oh, shit.
(01:39):
Yes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So before we get started, pleaseremember to like share and react
and comment on this episode.
Also subscribe here on YouTubeon Buzzsprout.
Listen to us on your favoritepodcast platform.
Opinions and statements by myguests are entirely their own
and don't reflect mine or thoseof next curve.
We're doing this to provide anopen forum for discussion and
(02:02):
debate.
We hope you find the programinformative.
And fun.
And with that, gentlemen, let'sdive into this because there's a
lot to cover.
I'm really looking forward toyour takes and your insights
from this year's event, which,by the way, I thought was
fabulous.
why don't we start off withthis, your impression in one
word.
(02:23):
Or maybe a pair of words, howwould you describe this year's
event?
Chetan Sharma (02:29):
You go, Peter.
Peter Jarich (02:30):
I'm going to say frank and honest.
and what I mean is, you know,Frank, I'll just say, if I said
Frank, people might think who'sFrank, who is this Frank guy?
Peter's talking about.
so that's why I said, I mean,it's interesting because.
If you looked at some of thecomments right off the keynotes,
right?
I think some of them were like,Oh, it feels like groundhog day.
(02:50):
We've been saying the samethings over and over and over,
especially around regulation,especially in the state of the
industry.
But the tone was different,right?
The tone was much more of like,it was, it was much more direct.
And I think no matter where youfit on the political spectrum, I
think that we know that the U Sadministration in some ways has
sort of enabled a more directFrank.
(03:13):
Sort of less polite tenor ofconversation.
And I think you saw thatreflected, right?
You saw that reflected in a lotof the conversations of, okay,
folks, this is the way it is.
Or even the conversations aroundgeopolitics weren't so much like
one side says, Oh, China's moreinterested in domestic issues.
And there's no real issue withthe, with other, the U.
S.
and the response not being,well, I think we have a
(03:36):
different view.
Another response was just veryclear.
No, you're wrong.
And here's why.
Right?
So I think it is.
It was refreshing in that, insome ways, in that there were a
lot of conversations that werereally important conversations,
and they were still polite andgenuine, but also a little bit
more direct than I saysometimes.
Leonard Lee (03:53):
Interesting.
Chetan?
Chetan Sharma (03:55):
Not to just add to what Peter said, but I think
it was much more.
pragmatic, more grounded inreality on a number of fronts.
Geopolitics is one of them, but6G, for example, is another one.
AI was all over the place.
You gotta have at least onething that is on the hype scale.
So AI was that thing this year.
but I always love going to theshow because it just gives you,
(04:16):
you know, in four days, a goodgrounding of what's to come, and
get a sense of, where theindustry is at, and you can
just, eek out a lot of pearls ofwisdom from just talking to
friends and colleagues that youcannot do any other way.
Leonard Lee (04:30):
Yeah, these are great ways of describing the
event.
This year.
I agree with both of you.
I guess I will add present.
and I say that versus thefuture, because last year it was
future 1st and I really I didn'tI thought that was not a good
focus or a good theme for theevent.
I was just glad to see thatthere was a lot of focus on the
(04:52):
present when you talk to, a lotof the companies again,
colleagues and friends.
In the industry, there's thisdesire to get back to what is it
that we need to do to move theball.
And I thought that was verycomforting.
I think it's a really gooddirection for GSMA as a whole.
And so, hey, big thumbs up.
Proof that I'm not like a DebbieDowner all the time.
(05:13):
I just want the industry, likeall of us wanted to go in a
better direction.
And I think GSMA this year andall the, partner members, they
did the right thing.
And you're absolutely right andyou know that they had to
anticipate this before.
A lot of the geopolitical.
turmoil, was stirred up.
So, that was a good call.
(05:35):
So, yeah, really great stuff.
So, gentlemen, what were some ofthe themes that stuck out for
you this year as you wereroaming the halls and, you know,
giving interviews or moderatingpanels?
And Peter, what else do you do?
You do a lot of this stuff,right?
You're managing a friggin teamof like, massive
Peter Jarich (05:54):
I go where I'm told.
no, it's I had this conversationwith some folks saying, in
theory, the way I set upmeetings and do what I do should
be different now that I run ateam versus when I was in But I
always, I do the exact samething I did probably 20 years
ago.
I schedule a bunch of meetings.
Don't pay attention to wherethey are.
So go from Hall 6 to Hall 8 toHall 1 back to back.
(06:15):
so I would say I think Chetanhit a good one.
6G, interesting 6Gconversations, not as many as I
expected, particularly aroundquestions around geopolitical
concerns and fragmentation oftechnologies.
A lot of vertical conversations.
I think if there was one subtheme that I thought was really
interesting, it was, criticalcommunications and defense as a
(06:38):
standout growing, verticalinterest, if you wandered the
halls enough, you saw the folksfrom the DOD there, we all know
that the U.
S.
Department of Defense is,looking at some of these
commercial technologies inparticularly interesting ways, a
lot of discussion around networkresilience to protect against
either manmade or naturaldisasters.
(06:58):
and really, We know those otherverticals that we've been
talking about, ports, mining,utilities, you've seen some of
those, but I think the bubblingup of defense was a really
interesting one that kind ofcaptured the interest in pulling
verticals in, the monetizationof those networks, things like
Open RAN, but then also, thegeopolitical angle.
(07:20):
So I think it was aninteresting, encapsulation of
all those things.
Chetan Sharma (07:25):
yeah, for me, the thing that really stood out,
probably from day zero, justlike Saturday, Sunday was the
geopolitics.
I think if you sit back and say,what are the ground truths that
I didn't know, coming into theshow?
geopolitics has been an overhangfor a long time, but the way it
(07:46):
accelerated and permeated inevery conversation, behind the
scenes, was a bit striking.
and for obvious reasons.
beyond the tariff, discussion, Ithink there is, something
brewing that could be apermanent reset in how alliances
are formed.
And we just don't know whereit's going to all settle, but
there is the questions beingasked are very different than
(08:07):
what they were 2345 weeks ago.
So that was something new anddifferent.
NTN, as expected, is surfacingup as, kind of a must have
feature.
There is still a distancebetween, Having the feature and
monetization, but NTN has jumpedas something that every operator
(08:28):
is looking at every country islooking at the lack of 60 or I
guess, there's not a lot abouttalk about 60, but what will
lead to 60?
Like what's the 5G advancedpath?
What features are going to bethere that lead to 60?
so I think that's the rightdiscussion.
So we focus on here and now, andas you said, and then figure out
(08:50):
what the road map is for 6G.
And we, because I had this fearof, getting sucked into the 3GPP
vortex, and not really steppingback and saying, let's learn
from what happened with 5G.
and focus more on the economicsof these solutions and the
infrastructure rollout versusjust blindly following one
(09:11):
another off the cliff.
Peter Jarich (09:12):
it is worth noting.
I think maybe some of the, andagain, I was surprised on the 6G
front because, last year we hadconversations around, let's make
sure 6G remains a globalstandard.
You would think a year laterthat seems even more in peril,
given where we are in the world.
I was surprised to think aboutmore.
We all know this week in Korea,it's the big 6G a thon, right?
(09:34):
And there's a lot ofconversations, a lot of
discussions.
So that may have stolen some ofthe thunder perhaps, and maybe
siphoned off some of thediscussion.
But yeah, it was, refreshing.
I don't think any of us missedthe 6G conversation.
I can't say I was actuallymissing it, but yeah, it wasn't
quite there.
Leonard Lee (09:50):
I think there was a, like you mentioned practical
before Chetan, a practicalgrounded focus on 5g, a lot of
talk about essay, at least inthe discussions that I've had,
and, I spent a lot of time attheir Ericsson booth.
And so, you know, as we allknow, and we've been to their
events, 1 of the things thatthey're looking to do is really
move the ball.
(10:11):
On 5G, even ahead of all the 6Gtalk, I think that those are 2
separate conversations at themoment, because the dilemma
right now is how do we continueto progress 5G where operators
can benefit from.
the, what I call thistechnological backlog that we
have now with 5G as we're movingtoward specification release 19.
(10:35):
I mean, there's all thesefeatures you mentioned features,
right?
All these features that areuntapped.
And so.
you know, 1 of the things that Ithink is important, and I think
you're starting to see thisurgency start to form this year
is the need to tell the storyabout how our operators
(10:56):
pioneering operators like TMobile and others around the
globe leveraging these newcapabilities.
technologies to create newservices and what are some of
these patterns and modalitiesof, monetization that can be
had, right?
Because, this whole monetizationtopic has been such a ridiculous
one.
Quite honestly, yeah.
(11:18):
And and 1 of the things Inoticed is there's this huge gap
between technology andmonetization piece.
There's this big gap that hasn'tbeen addressed and spoken to
very well.
I think we're starting to seepeople talk about it and, I
think that's another hopefuloutcome, of this more grounded
(11:40):
agenda, whether it was intendedor not.
It's just it came off like thatto me of, of mobile and Congress
and what it seems like, Eithersubconsciously or consciously
pursuing, this year andhopefully going forward.
So anyways, I don't know what itis.
Peter Jarich (11:57):
I think it's interesting to your point,
though.
So I think it is tough, right?
I think it's tough because youhave different personas, which
would show up to any show.
So there's some people that arethere want to think about that
bigger transformation and thinkabout how do we actually drive
outcomes and monetize.
There are other people who arethere to talk technology.
(12:18):
But you will always that theywant to understand how we enable
slicing.
It's not their job to figure outhow you make money from it.
So it's always difficult whenyou've got that multi, that sort
of different people there.
But I'll say to your point, thenumber of times I heard people
sort of reference things likethe T priority service and what
T-Mobile was doing as likehere's a great example and we're
actually seeing slicing and thisis kind of cool.
(12:40):
So I think people are, when theysee those good examples.
And that one I think plays toexactly what you're talking
about.
There's a lot of essay.
There seemed like there was aGuarded optimism around SA,
maybe, finally, sort of,potentially, taking off.
and, you know, because we'vebeen talking about it for a
while, and we've seen the slowgrowth, and we know it's what
holds back things like slicing,and we know it's what holds back
(13:02):
a lot of things.
I think it's also holding back5G advanced discussion, because
a lot of operators are going towant to have SA before they do.
Even though it's not requiredfor a lot of 5G advanced
capabilities, a lot of operatorswill want to do it.
So but yeah, I think some ofthose good examples, you're 100
percent right.
We need to see them.
And when they're good ones,people do get excited about
(13:23):
them.
Chetan Sharma (13:25):
some of these features need to be consumable
just because they exist doesn'tmean third parties can just take
advantage of them.
slicing is a great example wherelast year Erickson showed how
slicing was integrated into theSony cameras.
that's a great example of Thethird party not worrying about
the complexity of the technologyis one to consume it and figure
(13:47):
out the pricing and monetizationon their end.
And that's what you need fromthese features.
They need to be exposed in a waythat they are consumable.
Just like an Amazon API, right?
I just have my credit card.
I want this feature.
I put my credit card.
I consume it and that's.
That's the level of simplicity.
It needs to be there, which wasnot there prior to that.
(14:08):
I mean, slicing has been aroundfor some time.
I think we're getting to a pointwhere these features, whether
the operators used for their ownpurpose, like key priority or
network management or congestionmanagement, or you make it
available to the enterprises whocan consume it on demand as
needed on a predictable pricingplan, then it becomes all of a
(14:29):
sudden and you don't have totalk to anybody like you just go
and figure it out on a websiteor through an A.
P.
I.
I think that's when it scales.
If there is too much handholding or too much complexity,
it holds it back.
Leonard Lee (14:41):
Well, yeah, regarding the network slicing,
the way I look at it is more ofan underlying capability.
And if you, as you move towardfive G.
S.
A.
S.
You have the ability toinstitute network slices in a
very dynamic way.
And what that means is that,from a service, perspective, you
can design things that are eventbased or,, condition or context
(15:06):
based.
Right?
So these can be deployed.
Very quickly, they may be highvalue scenarios, but they're not
permanent.
they're ephemeral.
They're there when you need itand then they disappear and then
they're also balanced againstwhatever available capability
and capacity in that particularlocation.
(15:27):
And so, I think that's 1 of thethings that's important for the
industry to understand, because,like, you guys gentlemen have
been saying, Network slicing hasbeen a part of the telco
discourse for a long time.
A lot of people scratching theirheads about, when's all the
hypothetical stuff going tohappen?
oddly, the weird thing abouttechnology is that, you know, it
(15:50):
does realize itself over time.
And I think we're at a differentpoint now where the technology
has matured and you can actuallyrealize the capabilities are
beyond what we had before.
And so I think, a lot of us havebeen dishammered I don't know if
that's the right term.
Disillusioned.
Peter Jarich (16:09):
Yes, it's fine.
It's fine.
Disenamored is a good word.
Disenamored.
Okay, we'll get into thedictionary.
Yeah,
Leonard Lee (16:18):
I was always really bad at the verbal section of the
anyways.
and so there is a bit of aovershooting.
We disregard things like, ah,you're bringing up network
slicing.
We talked about that forever,but there's, there are these new
possibilities.
I think we just need to framethose in the proper way and, I
think that that's the thing thatwe can do going forward is help
(16:39):
people understand what is.
Yeah.
Now this nouveau role of,network slicing and all these
other things that come togetherin compelling new ways.
so anyway,
Peter Jarich (16:49):
I think as much as pragmatic though, and I don't
want to be the negative Nelly orwhatever.
However, you referencedyourself, Leonard, but I, from a
pragmatism standpoint, I saw acouple of times people talk
about things like networkslicing, right?
Network slicing.
And I think taking what you weresaying chatting about making
this stuff consumable, right?
If I think about consumable andI think network slicing, it sort
(17:12):
of leads to a conversation ofnetwork APIs, the open gateway
initiative.
We've seen all everything that'staking place on there and
extension of things like qualityand demand.
Network APIs, big discussion,obviously this year, last year,
we start seeing more and moreoperators getting involved.
Quality on demand, a lot of theinitial work has been done,
(17:33):
around identity, sim swap,fraud, security, things that
are, there's a very clear ROI.
People are looking towardsquality on demand going forward.
Which kind of goes to sort ofthe broader slicing story, but I
had some interestingconversations.
People say yes That's reallythat's really exciting if we can
get to the end of the year withone or two good use cases That's
(17:53):
wonderful.
We need to be patient and andI've heard people talking about
and I think if If you were outthere, and I think you were at
the like Erickson pre brief Theyhad the CEO of Aduna and really
great job explaining sort of thebusiness model It's a look some
analysts asked him about numbersHow much activity do we expect
going forward?
I said, look, we just need to bepatient around this stuff.
(18:14):
This takes time.
Totally appreciate whether it'srolling out quality in a man,
whether it's predicting thefuture on how much activity
we'll see there.
Appreciate the pragmatism of weneed to be patient, but I worry
because no one's patient.
this is not a world where peopleare like, yeah, no, no, I take a
damn.
Heck, you know what?
If you were doing badlyfinancially, I'd be worried, but
(18:36):
you're not, you're making tonsof money.
The industry's in great shape.
Take all the time you need.
That's not the case.
we're not in that space, right?
We're not in a space where telcois, pulling in tons of money.
Right.
We know that, right?
you sit, it's the message youhear in the keynote, the first
keynote of the year, you seethat giant chart that looks like
this and the number that lookslike this shows costs versus
(18:57):
whatever metric, right.
And balancing that against, Oh,don't worry.
We have time to figure this out.
I do worry that.
There sometimes, especially withsome of these new technologies,
there does need to be a littlebit more.
Um, uh, no, I'm at a loss forwords there, Leonard, right?
(19:19):
And I think, we need torecognize the continued urgency
around making some of thesethings work because as much as.
I think we're also in a betterplace where we know how the
hyperscalers are partnering withoperators.
They're also, in many ways, onsome of these things, very
potential competitors, right?
And unless we get things figuredout, right?
(19:41):
Unless the op how many timeshave we talked about a potential
future in which Apple figuresout how to make slicing a
reality?
We know it's in iOS, embeds itin, you know, the app store and
sort of kind of like we saw withdriving the, driving the
narrative on eim, right?
I think there's be a bit of anurgency there of, of making sure
(20:03):
we execute on some of thesecapabilities and a lot of
operators have it.
Don't get me wrong, you saw somuch activity from so many
operators that they get it.
I just think that needs to be astory that, they all understand.
Leonard Lee (20:13):
Well, Chetan, any comment?
I mean, he's making a greatpoint, by the way.
I think it's something that.
Chetan Sharma (20:18):
No, he's spot on.
patience is absolutelywarranted, but also you need a
rapid, I think countries whereall 3 operators or all 4
operators are on the sameplatform.
It's relatively easier to offerthat to the developer community
or the enterprise.
Versus if there's only oneoperator from a country who is
signed up, I think you wouldexpect that those operators in
(20:41):
those countries will make goodprogress and the numbers will
start piling up and at somepoint you have to discuss the
numbers, because, you have to dotrillions of transactions to
make billions from all thisstuff.
And so we just need to see whatpath are we on.
in terms of number oftransactions taking place on a
daily basis, once you have asense of the trajectory, then
(21:02):
you can do basic math, right?
how many operators you add tothis mix, how many more API's
you add to the mix to see ifthere is a hockey car or it's a
steady growth with both in bothcases is fine, but you do need
to show progress on a year oryour basis that so it's
meaningful.
Otherwise, you know, As youmentioned, their competitors,
(21:23):
which probably offer a moreholistic offering, with storage
and compute as well.
And so if developer is thinkingabout a new way of driving some
application, they just want aone stop shop.
They don't want to go forcertain applications for certain
APIs to the operator in certain.
Workloads to the hyperscalersand since so there is the
(21:47):
tension as well as urgency toaddress that.
Leonard Lee (21:50):
my observation is a lot of the stuff is still pretty
well misunderstood.
I wrote a number of pieces inthe run up of MWC about.
Network APIs and Aduna inparticular and it's role as an
exchange.
And so I think you guys aremaking a great point here.
(22:11):
What is this Aduna thing?
And what is an API exchange?
What should we expect of it?
And should it be the same as,let's say a platform.
Right.
But it's not entirely that Ithink 1 of the things that the
Ericsson folks.
And their partners have beentrying to emphasize is that this
is, this is kind of like a semifor profit.
(22:33):
This is like profit to, youknow, to profit enough to
survive or sustain itself typeof model.
And I think that's where we haveto recognize that from a
business, entity perspective,right?
And its role within the broaderecosystem.
But Peter, you're absolutelyright in the bigger picture.
It needs to figure out.
Okay.
(22:53):
what is that large scale valuethat network APIs are going to,
deliver and what is the role ofthe aggregators in these,
network API exchanges in,scaling the markets for, exposed
network functions or,capabilities and, I think trust
(23:14):
is going to be a really hugething.
Guys, look, I don't know if anyof you go to RSAC, but the fear
around AI is palpable.
It's growing because the threatsthat, AI, in particular, gen AI
augmented.
Attacks present is justabsolutely frightening for the
cyber security and cyber trust,community.
(23:36):
And so in simple things liketrust security, I think there's
a huge opportunity for thesenetwork APIs where the operators
are going to be able to, expresstheir, network capabilities and
supporting a lot of.
Trust functions above the leveland so this becomes less of an
(23:57):
ROI thing for, companies, butmore of a huge mismitigation
because literally, I don't thinklike, you know, I look at my
mailbox about 90 percent of thestuff I get now just spam or
some kind of really compellingphishing, email or a prompt to
get engaged in a conversationalphishing.
(24:19):
Chat stream.
I mean, it's outrageous.
Peter Jarich (24:23):
Stop there before you get yourself in trouble.
This doesn't sound like it'sgoing.
I don't know what theseconversations are, but no, I
mean, I think it's, it's, Ithink, I think it's your, I was
about to say I was worried aboutAI before I saw the.
Robotic vacuums that we decidedto give AI and limbs, you know,
not now that they're robotvacuums that can pick things up
(24:45):
and they've got AI.
I was.
Oh, my gosh.
No, but I think the difficultpart is.
Here's where we are.
Two years ago, we had to explainto people why this was
important, right?
We had to explain that, oh,look, a common set of APIs is
better than proprietary APIsbecause it can scale.
I had to explain that.
But now we're in the nittygritty of how does it work, and
(25:06):
how do exchanges work, and whatare the pricing models, and what
are the, and I think to someextent that's what folks like
Aduna are there to help.
Sort out, but it doesn't make itany right.
So it's a much more complicatedon top of that then building the
demand, right?
Going out building that, and Iwork with folks, here internally
at the GSMN We're trying tofigure out how do you build that
(25:27):
demand?
How do you go to potential?
Consumers of this and say,here's why you want this, right?
The social media companies thatin some jurisdictions will get
in trouble if they're serving upsocial media to someone who is
under 16.
So if there's a, if there's asimple way to go and prove this,
(25:49):
but then, and here's the fun,like we have a round table on
network APIs and developers,with a bunch of folks.
Here was an interesting sort ofthing that I had thought of.
The industry has spent youtalked about fishing and that's
there's no joke there, right?
I don't mean to make light ofthat fraud.
That was pretty funny, though.
I don't know about yours, butfraud is a horrible.
(26:11):
I mean, there are all sorts ofhorror stories about people who
lose not only their lifesavings, but in different
economies are finding themselvesbasically part of modern slavery
because they've they fell.
The file of something so this isreally horrible but we spent
years telling people dual factorauthentication and do all these
(26:33):
things what's going to happenwhen now we use api's to make
that more seamless we're goingto have to reeducate people of
well don't worry the operatorhas.
Maybe the operator solved thatby knowing where you are on your
phone.
And so I think it's more thanjust business level
transformation.
It's transformation the way weengage with our operators, which
is really where they should bethe whole time.
(26:54):
They should be in the middle ofthat.
So it's, yeah, I thinkultimately it's a really good
thing.
Leonard Lee (26:57):
any final thoughts on this big topic, Chetan?
Chetan Sharma (27:01):
I think it's to be continued.
Leonard Lee (27:06):
Okay.
All right.
So the next thing I want to dohere is just get your real quick
takes on a number of themesthat, I thought, were pretty
important going in.
I mean, or at least, you know,they're, carry overs from last
year, some of them, but thensome that we anticipated would
be, big things.
this year.
So the 1st thing that I want toask you gentlemen about is the
(27:30):
question that everybody wants toknow.
Okay?
Metaverse.
Okay.
Thank you.
Next topic.
I'm sure in a couple of boothsthere were.
Interesting to go there.
(27:51):
I'm sure there
were a few.
I, did I not see the off side?
Yeah, I know we have to be kind.
All right.
So, the elephant in the room, ifnot the el, just the elephant.
generative AI and agent ai.
What did you guys think?
Chetan Sharma (28:07):
I mean, gen AI transformed into agent AI this
year, and last year it was allabout gen ai.
This year it was all about agentai.
Yeah.
so I mean, AI has been so.
Clearly there's the hype part,but then if you look beyond the
like beneath the surface,especially in,, there are three
areas that have surfaced overthe last year where AI is
(28:30):
making, an impact that it wasnot doing before, one is,
clearly customer service, andthat's the low hanging fruit,
Second is knowledge managementwithin the enterprise.
And so that's not unique totelco.
It's across, all theenterprises.
But the one that where it'sreally starting to make some
dent and it's a verycomplicated, deployment is that
(28:51):
of network management.
How do you automate functions ofan enormously complex, network
and network nodes in a way that,manages congestion?
It does fraud detection, detectsanomalies, solves real time,
issues automatically, energymanagement and so on and so
forth.
So I think there is definitely,progress on that front, because
(29:14):
there are a lot of softwaresolutions to generally hardware
ecosystem and here, both, thetraditional OEMs, but also a
number of startups are taking acrack at it.
And, you know, companies likeOpenga Networks or Aira and
others, are making substantialprogress in how you ingest
(29:35):
network data.
And then turn into a some sortof actionable intelligence in a
closed group manner, which isenormously hard to do.
Yeah, and so there is definitelygood progress in terms of on all
these fronts from the startupsfrom the from the OEMs.
And that's what I'm most excitedabout.
Peter Jarich (29:54):
Yeah, yeah, Peter, I say, I mean.
You can't spell agentic AIwithout Jenny.
I just, uh, yeah, I mean,honestly, Jenny, I know.
So I think, I think what'sinteresting is we always need
something new, right?
You don't want to go anotheryear and say what?
So yeah, agentic AI was the newhotness this year.
(30:18):
Everyone wanted to talk aboutit.
I read a blog post, which Ithink was really spot on where
it said, remember a couple ofyears ago when Gen AI was the
big thing.
And then everyone you talk to,every supplier had gen AI
integrated into their solutions.
They're like, look for the samething for magentic AI.
And you sure, same thing, right?
You saw the number of boothscome talk to us.
We'll develop an agent with you.
We'll develop an agent for you.
(30:38):
And it really did take over, butI think ultimately I think it
took over because the questionis, well, what do we want?
AI to do it.
We want to actually deliver anaction, right?
So I think it is pointing tothat interest there of actually
having a human in the loop insome cases, but actually taking
action where it becomes reallynot whether or not all the
(31:01):
agentic AI we saw was reallyagentic AI or not.
I don't know.
But what I think was more frommy standpoint, I think if we
were looking for something new,Agentic AI was clearly there,
but what I thought was new onthe AI front, which I thought
was more interesting for me, wasthis focus on what we can do
with networks to support AI,right?
Because we know that we've allhad this conversation around AI
(31:24):
for networks versus networks forAI.
And Chen called out like theperfect example of AI for
networks, right?
We're seeing AI being used,network automation, network
optimization.
We're seeing progress there.
That's where a lot of operatorsare focused, but where they
haven't been focused is how dowe need to Invest in and develop
our networks to support futureAI workloads.
We, that's been a discussionpoint that's been out there for
(31:46):
a while.
And of course, all theinfrastructure vendors are going
to want to talk that up.
Hey, you know, make sure you'reinvesting in your network to
support AI.
But I think we saw someinteresting stuff this year from
whether it was like AWS workingwith operators to get their
data.
Just to get their data in place,which is critical or whether it
was the Verizon launch rightbefore MWC focused on edge and
edge workloads and edgeinferencing, whether it's just
(32:08):
people like building outbackbones, I think you're
beginning to see some of thisfocus on as a way to monetize
their networks, recognizing thatAI is going to require certain
capabilities.
And that I thought wasparticularly interesting.
Agentic AI was the buzz, butthis bubbling up of operators
who seem to be investing inplaces that will support AI.
With the potential to monetizewas more encouraging.
Leonard Lee (32:29):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
My observation was, that we wentfrom last year, there was this
notion that generative AI wouldbe able to do things that are
very granular and deep in thenetwork, code generation spit
out, network config files on thefly type of thing.
I think we've.
(32:50):
Moved away from that.
And now, there's a realizationthat you really have to start
from the top down and so doingthings in a longer time scale,
where the general AI tools canhave the opportunity to.
Assist a person in the middle,in making better decisions.
(33:13):
And so it's more of anassistive, copilot type of model
I didn't quite see anybody withthe courage this year to suggest
that you're going to take thisstuff to, level 4, even 3.
Autonomous networks.
and if anybody can actually showme something in production, give
me a call.
(33:34):
give all of us a call, or maybeChetan knows somebody that did
it, but I didn't see anythinglike that this year or anyone
courageous enough to say thatthey've deployed it in
production.
I think generative AI isstarting to, again, get
grounded, the conversation getgrounded whether people know it
(33:54):
or not.
And then the agentic stuff Ithink is really just becoming
augmented or slightly enhancedRPA.
You know, you look at theframework, you look at the
tooling, you look at how narrowthe deployments are in terms of
the actual, application ofgenerative AI.
it's starting to get grounded aswell.
(34:15):
And that's what we can expect inevery hype cycle.
Right?
These technologies land wherethey are actually usable and
these are some of the patterns Istarted to see.
I think we still have the restof the year for the industry to
catch up and, realize that,these are, the valuable,
implementation, patterns, forusing this technology.
Peter Jarich (34:38):
Be careful, Leonard.
Be careful.
so I think you're right.
And it was, I was at CES, I wasin a session around AI and
someone said, Oh, agentic AI isthe big new thing.
Does everyone out there knowwhat it means?
And there's a bunch of peoplelike it's RPA on steroids.
And I was like, Oh, okay.
But what's interesting is, and Ithink we all need to be careful
of this is, is I've been in somany group chats and emails
(35:00):
where someone talks about somenew agentic AI innovation And
then you get like, a dozenresponses going.
Oh, I that's just ml.
I've been doing like I was doingthat 20 years ago with cobalt
and I think you do see this,particularly with folks who've
been around the industry for awhile to sort of, I know we're
all a bit jaded, but we look atthese things and go, oh, that's
(35:20):
not new.
that's machine learning and Iwas doing that in college back
in the yeah maybe not so I thinkand I see that sort of a well
agentic is just RPA it's a greatway to describe it.
But we still need to be open toat least some of this being
innovative or else we're goingto seem old.
We're going to seem old andcranky.
Leonard Lee (35:38):
No, I think that's where the grounding happens.
You know, actually, the oddthing is, as you get older and
more experience, you do seethat, the newer generations
don't know about the old stuffand then things that were
esoteric to the old generation,all of a sudden become a new
thing.
And it's.
(35:59):
That's why I think analysts playan important role, technologists
who have legacy play a role inreminding folks about the
history.
And there's nothing wrong aboutsaying that it's RPA.
AI is an incremental, technologyas much as everyone says that
it's revolutionary.
And it will make things that arealready on the continuum of, AI
(36:23):
evolution, to make, you know,application patterns like RPA
even better and there's nothingwrong with that.
That's great.
But I think the height,narratives suggest something far
more dramatic and outrageousthan what the reality is.
And so, you know, I guess, I, Iwill dare to be dangerous.
Peter Jarich (36:46):
How's that, Peter Wow.
You were, were you doing a NickCage, impression there?
It sounded like it sounded No, Ithink I was Oh my God.
I love you guys.
That was good.
No, I think it is.
I think for me, I think just onthe adjunct conversation, right,
I think you're right, having abit of a history there, because,
(37:07):
you know, what was the one thingthat we didn't see this year?
We did see AI devices.
I mean, don't get me wrong, Ithink DT.
Had their example yet, but lastyear, right?
Oh, that's true.
The big last year.
There was the humane pen that'sright.
That was sort of the big newsand those kind of all went away,
but the reality is Those werejust hardware forms of agentic
ai.
Yeah.
You were supposed to tell yourrabbit, go and make a buy
(37:29):
flowers for my wife.
And it was supposed to go do it,right?
But we weren't quite there yet.
And so I think it is importantto have that sort of history and
go, okay, well maybe next year'sthe year for those devices where
we get agentic AI figured out.
I don't know.
Yeah.
Leonard Lee (37:43):
We'll eventually maybe get there, if it makes
sense.
I think is really what it boilsdown to, now thoughts on private
5g, because last few years,private 5g was supposed to be
sort of this, you know,stimulant for, for the 5g
movement, any thoughts there?
What'd you guys see?
In that regard,
Chetan Sharma (38:04):
you know, kind of steady progress.
from last year, I think they'rein private 5g.
There are two worlds, China andthe rest of the world.
And so in China, it continues tobe on a hockey curve.
the rest of the world is makingsteady progress.
And so the question is, what arethose forms of progress?
you know, operator spectrum,CBRS, and so on and so forth.
And so it's still not at a pointwhere it's at the knee of the
(38:25):
curve.
It's just, you know, you go from10 to 20 deployments, but still
fairly minor stuff in rest ofthe world from a private 5G
point of view, where the realprogress is happening in China
on private 5G front.
Peter Jarich (38:40):
It is, I think, yes, and we saw definitely
picking up.
It is incremental.
You need the solutions in place.
You need a broad ecosystem.
and I think it was always goingto take a while for this to ramp
up.
You need the enterprises.
I think this goes back to, whatyou were saying, it means those
good examples, right?
So as you see those examples.
it becomes much easier for someother enterprise to say, I get
(39:02):
it.
Here's how it fits into what I'mdoing.
And then understand it fits intoevery vertical is neat because
every vertical is different,right?
Manufacturing has a differentrequirement than mining, then a
porch, then public safety, thenwhatever.
Leonard Lee (39:15):
And you know, Chetan, I read your, event
summary, by the way, awesome.
Anybody out there who wants Toread a really nice recap of,
MWC, you know, go to Chetan'sLinkedIn profile.
he has that posted as anewsletter.
I'm sure you're going to have iton your website as well.
(39:36):
But you mentioned somethingabout the reluctance or I don't
recall how you described it, butit was along the lines of
enterprises are reluctant orcautious about approaching.
Chetan Sharma (39:46):
I think what I was, talking about is the
operators being reluctant to goafter the enterprise market,
Leonard Lee (39:51):
the
Chetan Sharma (39:54):
way they should.
I think the big part of money wehave been saying since, the
start of 5G is the enterprisemarket.
And I think only China hascracked that nut.
and other operators are just,not quite there yet as to how
they want to approach thatmarketplace.
should they do it themselves?
Should they go through thechannels, through SIs and so on
(40:15):
and so forth?
So I see a reluctance, which isborn out of, should we build
this?
First, this capability and thengo to the market or organically
grow it.
And so that is, taking time.
whereas in China, all threeoperators are just hitting the
road.
Leonard Lee (40:33):
the other thing, that I'd like to get your takes
on, AI ran, you kind of hinted alittle bit about it, Peter, but
what were your observationsabout AI ran MWC?
I know it's a rather new topicbecause AI ran alliance was
introduced just last year, or atleast it formed last year.
(40:55):
But where do you guys think weare with AI RAN, how's that
conversation, shaping up?
Peter Jarich (41:01):
Yeah, I think there's a lot of questions about
what it means, right?
So I think when it formed lastyear, to some extent, there was
some, and they did a really goodjob.
I think if you pay attention towhat the AI RAN Alliance was
doing, and they've grown theirnumbers for a reason, because,
people see that connection, but,I think there was some
suspicion.
Right, because of the variousdifferent use cases they called
(41:21):
out, one of them is, run your AIworkloads on the same compute
that you'd run as you're doingRAN and AI the same.
And when you're not doing yourRAN, you could do AI stuff.
I think there was a bit of asuspicion of, is this just a way
to sell me more chipsets andsell GPUs?
Wait, is this just NVIDIAsaying, you need to buy more
GPUs, and I'm going to give youmore, I'm going to explain to
you other reasons why you needto buy GPUs and a way to grow
(41:45):
the market.
And so I think there was a bitof a suspicion there.
And also, are we ready, primetime, for running these RAN
workloads on GPUs?
What I think is interesting is,a year later, I think people
have sort of understood more ofeverything that this means,
right, which is part of whatChetan was saying, using AI to
improve our RAN operations,right, embedding AI into what
(42:08):
we're doing in the RAN toimprove that.
And that's obviously goingforward towards 6G.
some of those use cases of howwould I run RAN on GPUs.
but also recognizing that'spossibly a bit all of the above
as I evolved my network.
And here was an interestingexample that just talking with
someone, this is for anyone whohasn't been done to see part of.
(42:29):
I think that the value of beingthere is analysts that you have
conversations that things makesense.
But I was talking with a bigoperator who is trying to think
about their enterprise strategy.
Right.
And the first part of most ofthese enterprise strategies
involve things like, putting aserver on prem.
Right.
And then you do some of thatserver.
And they're a big proponent ofvirtualized RAN.
So, hey, so I'm going to put theserver in the enterprise, run
(42:50):
some RAN workloads on it.
Now, in the enterprise, they maynot need to be running that RAN
with the same level ofredundancy or the same level of
capacity as you would in theoutdoors.
So if you do have a server thatyou've deployed in the
enterprise as part of yourenterprise 5G strategy, and
you're running RAN on it, andyou have spare capacity, Well,
then maybe it makes sense to usethat same capacity to do some AI
(43:12):
things, right?
And when you think about it likethat, and you connect those
dots, then people go, Oh, okay.
So yeah, I could see how thiscould all fit together.
So I think as people understandwhat AI RAN means, everything
from optimizing the RAN to doingmultiple different workloads.
AI for ran, ran for AI, AI onran, whatever, again, same
(43:32):
conversation before, it takes awhile for people to get, but it
makes sense in some instances,and now we just need to see
where those instances are andhow they play out.
Does any of that make sense?
Yeah,
Leonard Lee (43:44):
yeah.
So yes, it did make sense.
So congratulations, Peter.
Chetan Sharma (43:52):
So, it's, quite interesting at the macro level,
when Jensen was talking about asovereign AI, I think, that
pretty much defines how the twocamps are progressing.
So countries who have believedin sovereign AI, given what's
happening with geopolitics, Ithink in those countries,
They're also the hyperscalersand not that deeply present.
(44:14):
operators play a role in datacenters.
I think those places the air andis getting traction first
because there are multiple waysto justify the investment,
building your own data centerusing that I.
Capacity for your own developersin the country, keeping your
data in house, keeping yourmodels in house and so on and so
(44:35):
forth.
And so Indonesia, Japan, Korea,India, some of the Nordic
countries.
So those are the first movers inthe space where, the
hyperscalers are deeply present,like Western Europe or North
America.
there is a hesitation and a waitand see approach in terms of
figuring out.
Well, if I build this fabric andI don't really have a data
(44:58):
center business to justify it,then will I be able to create
demand or not?
Let's keep the discussion aroundwhether running ran workloads on
GPU makes sense or not.
Just from a pure business pointof view, can you create enough
demand for the process?
Other workloads that's supposedto be run on the GPUs.
(45:19):
And so there is some hesitationfrom operators.
They want to wait and see beforethey decide one way or another.
Leonard Lee (45:27):
Yeah, the way I looked at it, as this whole,
maturity or evolutionary curvethat you describe Peter in your
earlier comments I think that1st phase of A.
I.
N.
ran is something that.
Is relevant today.
(45:48):
Everything else I think is toohypothetical, especially the
thesis on, the monetization of,access GPU or available GPU
capacity at any given time.
There's a lot of technical gapsthere that need to be bridged.
I think operators and theindustry eventually, and this is
probably going to happen nextyear, are going to realize,
(46:10):
look, there are too many bitsand pieces that are not there to
get us to, the fourth state ofAI, or the fifth.
but that 1st 1 is reallyinteresting.
It has very little to do withGPU.
It's more about how do we applyvarious techniques from the
radio all the way to, let's saythe Rick or the S.
(46:32):
M.
O.
in, driving some optimizationsmore, let's say.
Optimized sleep functions and,power management, like those
simple, boring stuff thatactually has huge impact.
There was another thing that,oh, geez.
I wish I recall.
yeah, there's like fleetmanagement concepts as well.
Right where you can useadvanced, AI techniques to
(46:54):
manage a fleet of, cell sites.
So that, you are using.
Your backup power to, run yourcell sites during peak rate
hours, and then recharging atnight at lower charging time,
(47:15):
windows in the day or theevening, I thought, something
simple like that was awesome.
And you're looking holisticallyat the whole.
system and you're applying AI ina very, very ingenious way,
actually, that has outsizedimpact in terms of cost savings,
(47:36):
just beyond the efficiency of,of, you know, the ran itself.
Right.
It's just literally a out of thebox thinking, really cool
solution.
And it's something that I saw atthe Ericsson booth.
so those are my thoughts onthat.
I kind of think that, AI RAN isgoing to go the way of Open RAN.
So given that I am the inventorof Open RAN Squid Game.
(47:59):
Let's talk about that for amoment.
What happened to Open RAN?
Peter Jarich (48:09):
Oh, sorry, I froze.
My screen froze.
I didn't hear the question.
Uh, Chetan, you answer, becauseI didn't hear the question.
Chetan Sharma (48:21):
Open RAN, the, It's like, whatever it's not a
defined thing.
It can be whatever you want itto be.
And that has been the problemfrom the start.
I always felt that Open RANmissed the 5G cycle because it
came in probably a couple ofyears too late.
And by that time, a lot of theprominent operators had already
(48:44):
Figured out the architecturesand roadmaps and so trying to
fit that in into that discussionhas always been challenging and
operational part that Open RANplayers have minimized Over the
years is the toughest part toovercome You know when you go
talk to people who run thesenetworks on a day to day basis,
(49:06):
they don't want to get anythingtouched by A plethora of vendors
in the name of efficiency, likeif you are gaining 10 percent
efficiency, 20 percentefficiency, but operationally
you're going to go down 30%,like it all nets out.
So the challenge for Open RANis, you need, one or two players
who take on the burden ofputting it all together and be
(49:28):
the interface to the operator torun the networks in these
various markets.
Unless you have that system inplace, Open RAN kind of falls
apart.
Like, if you have 20 vendors Andmaybe two lead vendors, how
invariably something will gowrong.
How do you go about debuggingthe problem, A, and B, who do
you point to, to fix it?
(49:49):
Who, who gets penalized for thatoutage and so forth?
So the operational things havenever been like streamlined or
well understood.
And I think that has been theundoing of the Open RAN
principle, as it was statedearly on, right?
Now Open RAN has morphed intosomething else, like either, one
player Open RAN or whatever itmight be, it become into 6G.
(50:14):
So the notion of, openinterfaces is a valid one and a
useful one, for the ecosystem.
But how you operationalize OpenRAN is where it gets tricky.
that has been a challenge withOpen RAN.
Peter Jarich (50:26):
Now I thought you were going to take us in a
different direction, Leonard,but I would agree that AI RAN is
going to go the way of Open RANin that it's just going to
become a background thing thatexists, and maybe the terms will
morph and it will mean somethingdifferent, but it's just going
to be there and we won't talkabout it.
I had a conversation with asmall software supplier that
develops RAN stacks.
they sell into a lot ofdifferent vertical industries.
(50:47):
And they said, we don't talkOpen RAN.
We interoperate with everyone.
the concept of the basic idea ofwhat's going on with Open RAN.
Now, would there be a market forus if there hadn't been a big
push on Open RAN?
Maybe not.
And so the concept that Open RANwas going for is sort of alive
and strong, whether or not weuse the term.
Another comment I was talkingabout.
I'm talking to the bd guy wassaying i'd never talk open rent,
(51:10):
They deliver silicon, right?
You know ran silicon small smallplayers supporting the
particularly on the radio sideof things and said look i'd
never talk about open ran Andthe marketing guys like I do,
it's like, well, yeah, that'sbecause you're trying to
highlight what we do and peopleget it.
It may not always be exactlyopen, ran compliant, but what
they want to know is, will youwork with different baseband
providers?
(51:30):
Will you work with different,you know, radio, like, will you
fit into an open solution?
And I think AI ran willprobably, I think you're right.
It may go the same way where.
Maybe it means different things,but the concept of integrated AI
into the way we operate theradio access network and the way
we run things, I think will bethere, whether or not it fits
those exact terminologies.
I think same thing with OpenRAN, right?
(51:52):
I think, yeah, it's going to besingle vendor.
In some cases, it might beecosystem.
In some cases, it may notactually be Open RAN.
Right.
You don't need to do, I think agood example is you're talking
to SMO and RIC, right?
You don't, I mean the SMO andRIC, I mean the RIC is an Open
RAN construct.
Yeah.
It exists, but you don't needOpen RAN to have a RIC.
(52:13):
you can institute a RIC withoutan Open RAN network.
Those two things are separate.
At the same time, It was bornout of Open RAN, and I think
it's a good example of like, wemay not talk about Open RAN in
the same capital O, it might besmall O Open RAN, not capital O,
but the basic concepts I thinkare, you know, that's what's
(52:34):
going to have the impact on themarket.
Leonard Lee (52:36):
Yeah, I totally agree with you on that last bit.
I'm a big fan of the SMO, andthe RIC, especially the non real
time.
I think it's more aboutselectively interoperable ran
versus open.
Right?
It's like, what kind of toolsand do you want to use what
level of interoperability?
(52:56):
What set of.
Of, open interfaces and where atwhat level, that's basically
what it's going to boil down to.
And it's going to be specific toeach of the operators because
each of
Peter Jarich (53:09):
them.
that's just a really badmarketing term, selectively
interoperable ran coalition.
Right.
Selectively.
I mean, that has marketing allover.
But you're right.
I mean, It'll work in some butyou're right.
I mean, that's the thing.
it's not sexy, but it's right.
Leonard Lee (53:24):
We can start it next year.
Yes.
So, okay.
To wrap up gentlemen reallyquickly, where do you think
we're going to land next time ornext year?
where are we going to land at M.
W.
C.
2, 026.
Quick thoughts for our audience.
Say more.
Peter Jarich (53:44):
I think we'll still more.
Leonard Lee (53:45):
All right.
That was easy.
Chetan Sharma (53:47):
I think I will continue to be the dominant
theme next year as well.
Probably more NPN, discussions,more, alignment, hopefully less
geopolitics next year, but
Leonard Lee (53:57):
Okay.
So here's mine.
I think next year, insteadgrappling with global first,
because of the geopoliticalchallenges.
How does the mobile industrystick together and not become so
(54:18):
fragmented that we lose all thebenefits of all these years of
trying to come together andcreate common standards,
interoperability, all thatstuff.
I think that's going to be areal.
big topic just because, likewhat we got, we've been saying,
actually, collectively, I think,through this session, which, by
the way, gentlemen, I think isfriggin awesome.
I love you guys.
(54:38):
I want you to know that.
I love you guys, uh, we lovethat.
Hey, that that's what we'regoing to have to deal with.
And I think through the courseof the year, the 3 of us and the
analyst community are going tobe really challenged with
questions.
And, a lot of the industry isgoing to be looking for
guidance.
And so hopefully we'll have somefurther conversations and
(55:01):
debates about that.
Gentlemen, thank you so much.
this is really great.
Peter is great to, you know,have you on again.
Peter Jarich (55:09):
Bug me, bug me anytime.
Leonard Lee (55:10):
Yeah.
And Chet, no, of course, always.
I mean, this guy's like frigginglegendary, right?
He's like, I'm going to see youat GTC.
Yeah, are we going to hang outor are we going to avoid each
other like we did?
Chetan Sharma (55:23):
I don't know how it happened.
Maybe it's a smaller, smallerset up.
So we'll run it through.
Yeah.
Leonard Lee (55:28):
Yeah.
That, that, that was reallytragic that we didn't bump into
each other.
Peter Jarich (55:33):
I'll send my digital twin.
I'll send my digital twin toGTC.
So you can, you can meet him.
You can meet up with them.
Leonard Lee (55:38):
Cool.
Yeah.
And you can hang out withJensen's, you know, 1 billion
digital twins.
but, yes, everyone.
Hey, thanks for listening.
We appreciate you.
but watching this very specialpodcast recap of MWC 2025, make
sure to contact and connect withmy guests, Peter Jaric and,
(56:00):
Chetan Sharma.
I suggest that you reach out tothem on LinkedIn.
That's probably like the safestway these days and find out more
about Peter's work at GSMAintelligence at www.
gsmaintelligence.
com.
And of course, the illustriousChetan Sharma and his wonderful
work at Chetan SharmaConsulting.
(56:24):
Just go and check out all hisgreat content at www.
chetansharma.
com.
Consulting.
com.
And then also please subscribeto our podcast and it will be
featured in the next curveYouTube channel.
Check out the audio version onbuzzsprout and also subscribe to
the next curve research portalat www dot.
(56:47):
Next dash curve.
com for the tech and industryinsights that matter.
And we will see you next year torecap MWC 2026.
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