March 30, 2025 • 22 mins
neXt Curve's Leonard Lee was invited on a tour of Ericsson's booth at MWC 2025 Barcelona with VP of Strategy, Oliver Buschmann. Oliver takes Leonard on a journey from the Aduna, network APIs, differentiated connectivity, to programmable networks, to the topic of 5G monetization.
Many thanks to Ericsson for the booth tour and inviting neXt Curve to share our insights into the future of the industry and the opportunities amassing behind 5G SA.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Oliver Buschmann (00:00):
great to see you here.
Uh, Congress Leonard.
Leonard Lee (00:03):
Hi.
How it
Oliver Buschmann (00:04):
going?
Leonard Lee (00:05):
Very good.
Oliver Buschmann (00:06):
how was
Leonard Lee (00:06):
your show so far?
exhausting.
I think that's the only word youcan use when you reach the
fourth day of MWC.
Oliver Buschmann (00:13):
yeah, I'm have to be honest, I'm a bit more
introvert, but I think it'sreally energizing.
It is.
It is people.
It is seeing everything at lifereal.
Leonard Lee (00:23):
I'm pretty excited.
there's just so much foranalysts to absorb.
when we come here, we're roamingthe halls, we're having
briefings and meeting people.
And I think one of thehighlights this year definitely
is, the interactions that I'vehad with, Ericsson and, some of
the observations that I've made.
in terms of key trends thatwe're seeing in the industry,
it's just a lot to absorb, it'sgreat to have an opportunity to
(00:45):
kind of cap things a little bit.
Maybe let's,
Oliver Buschmann (00:48):
let's go through it.
Leonard Lee (00:49):
I need a little bit of time to synthesize stuff in
my brain here,
Oliver Buschmann (00:53):
let's have a chat.
It's good.
Let's start.
Maybe was just talking a bitabout what's becoming real now?
Like last year we talked aboutproof of concepts.
Yeah, you showed, for example,like a video broadcasting more
devices coming online now.
It seems like it's coming real,right?
Yeah.
Now we see cameras actuallyusing it.
What do you think?
Leonard Lee (01:11):
You can only regard it as a positive thing, right.
And, especially as, operators,especially pioneering operators
start to make that transition to5G Se I think they're really
Discovering.
Finally, wow.
We have all this technologythat's backlogged right behind
this 5G SA wall, and as youstart to.
(01:32):
transition to the other side,there's all these,
possibilities, especially as youstart to broaden your
deployment.
Yeah.
And then you start to capitalizeon the densification of the
network that you've, implementedin the run up to your
transition.
yeah.
I think we're starting to seethe potential.
And that's the interesting thingis we're kind of in early.
(01:55):
Days Of realizing a broader,realization of the benefits of
5G.
Oliver Buschmann (02:02):
Yeah.
Leonard Lee (02:03):
Yeah,
Oliver Buschmann (02:03):
I agree.
I mean, we've seen of course inthe past, like pixel, Alexa,
whatever there.
Pretty, pretty good use case.
super successful.
very good money for operators.
we see on the back actually hereon the camera is all the
enterprise, work that seems tobe going from POCs to production
as well right now.
You see manufacturing, forest,all this stuff coming alive.
That's good.
And I agree that's probably thenext thing that will happen.
(02:24):
Like how do we do realdifferentiated services,
differentiated connectivity.
We do quite a few examples here.
Leonard Lee (02:31):
Yeah.
Oliver Buschmann (02:31):
Yeah.
Leonard Lee (02:32):
And I think the possibilities are even broader
and I think deeper.
And have a potential to be moretransformative, especially as we
start to see, more of the 5G.
features start to exemptthemselves through not only the
network, but also in theapplications and use cases.
(02:53):
Right?
So, you know, that's somethingthat I'm always keeping an eye
out for.
And it is good to see theadoption and the traction that's
being made.
but I will have to say, there'sa lot more to be done, right?
Again, how do we trigger thattransition to 5G sa.
And, I'll keep saying it overand over again.
Yeah.
we need to figure out how to getoperators to realize that
(03:19):
benefit.
And, what I think is verypositive this year Is there
seems to be a realization of theneed to do that.
Right.
Especially in the context of,Competitiveness.
Right.
National or region morecompetitiveness.
Oliver Buschmann (03:32):
I agree.
I mean the anecdote that, likewhat's, what really needs to
happen now to make this real?
I think you mentioned 5G SA kindof, that's the baseline.
everybody has to have.
Then we are building on top ofit.
You've probably seenprogrammable networks.
So how do you actually make thenetwork programmable in the
sense of it can actually be onenetwork differentiate.
Opposite.
we may wanna look at, autonomousnetworks.
So that's gonna, and key enablerand then like how do you bring
(03:55):
it to developer?
Like you mentioned, like how doyou build an ecosystem around
it?
Right.
And maybe we can look at theAona demo and the area to see
like, how did it really work?
Yeah.
What do you think?
Do it.
Should we move over?
Yeah.
Okay.
So I thought we have a look at,how it really works with Aduna.
But you wanna have a look atour, what we call Hall of Fame
here.
Oh, is this the Hall of Fame?
(04:15):
Yeah, it's the Hall of Fame.
Okay.
Wow.
So you see we have now, on theoperator side, Katie DI also
joined right?
Recently.
Ian joined very recently and onthe platform side we had info
joining.
Yeah.
we had Cinch joining justrecently.
Yeah.
And, we have a, do you know orpartnership now with the Bridge
Alliance.
So the ecosystem seems to cometogether here.
(04:38):
Yeah.
So we're getting really goodmomentum, really good tailwind,
to really make it happen.
Yes.
So why does this matter?
I think if a developer reallywants to get into like a
function, let's say a fraudprevention.
Yeah.
They want to have a globalapplication.
Right.
And how do you do this?
You can only do it if you havelike all operators or laws of
(04:59):
operators joining.
And really global coverage andotherwise it's gonna be
difficult For developers to useit.
I think we should.
Be at a developer platform withthe developers and not build
something separate.
I think the developer should bethere while he always has
Programming and just get use ofit.
Leonard Lee (05:15):
Yeah.
Obviously I've, written quite abit about, network APIs for
quite some time.
Right.
And like your framework follow
Oliver Buschmann (05:23):
put end-to-end framework.
Leonard Lee (05:24):
It was sort of necessary because I think.
especially what you guys aredoing with the douna tends to be
a little bit different.
And, this year at MWCI I've,gotten some confirmation that
there was a need to clarifyexactly what the role of a douna
is, what it is that the JV isreally trying to do.
(05:45):
Right.
and I've seen that as like aprogression, you know.
Network APIs have been a thingforever.
Right.
And, yeah.
It's not like you guys decidedone day, hey, let's do network
APIs and, establish an exchangeand I call an exchange like
aduna.
this is a progression there.
(06:06):
There's, been a significanteffort to create.
A standard set of, APIdeviations.
Yeah.
Right.
I agree.
So that developers can accessexposed network capabilities.
And now we're in a place whereexactly to your point we're
looking at a future wheredifferent, what you guys call
(06:27):
differentiated connectivity Isreally going to be a thing.
We've heard of network slicing.
We've heard of all these great.
5G capabilities.
You mentioned the programmablenetwork and how now the
infrastructure itself isbecoming software defined,
increasing the software definedand cloud native.
Oliver Buschmann (06:48):
Yeah.
Leonard Lee (06:48):
Having these things now fall into place, we're
looking at a different scenariowhere these network APIs can
really take a role.
it's like a continuum, right?
It wasn't, it was never like,Hey, you.
Flip a switch and all of asudden you go from, no, it's a
journey.
Right?
A long journey.
Yeah.
That's something that, theindustry really needs to be
reminded of.
(07:09):
Yeah.
just simply because, is such along time scale for these things
to evolve and then hitinflection points.
And I think Aduna comes at apoint where, it can really,
catalyze the industry.
Oliver Buschmann (07:23):
Yeah.
Leonard Lee (07:24):
And really take the industry to that place that I
think we were talking about, 5GBeing sort of this, innovation
platform.
Yeah.
Especially for businesses,right?
Yeah.
You going transcendingconnectivity.
Transcending, what operatorstraditionally, um, we're
providing in terms ofcapabilities and services.
Oliver Buschmann (07:44):
Oh, I agree.
Well, I thought it was alsointeresting that we're now going
really beyond connectivity.
And, it has been always just,basically best effort.
Right now we're gettingdifferentiation.
Then we are adding also newcapabilities like quad
prevention, like locationinformation.
Like a lot of her ABIs arecoming to live that are actually
going beyond.
No, I like that point
Leonard Lee (08:02):
I've written, years ago about the inevitable.
changing nature or the evolvingnature of what we call the
network infrastructure, right?
And if you look at the 3G PProadmap, we have things like
integrated sensing.
All these new capabilities arerelated to quite honestly, iot
Yeah.
That make the infrastructurequite different from what Yeah.
(08:23):
Uh, we thought of it beforewhere, like you were saying,
we're just, providing besteffort connectivity now.
Now it's all of a sudden more,more, right?
Yes.
All this data can come off ofthe network and be leveraged in,
business applications.
And I think, the, these,security related Yeah.
Functions.
And, um, information that cancome off the network to support,
(08:46):
let's say authorization,authentication, I think before
start.
Right.
Very, very exciting things.
I mean, it sound, they soundpedestrian.
But they're gonna becomeessential, I think.
Yeah.
You know, it's so much
Oliver Buschmann (08:57):
easier to do, right?
You don't need to type innumbers anymore.
It's just, it's just, no.
You know what,
Leonard Lee (09:01):
you gotta start off with high value, low hanging
fruit.
You know, low hanging fruit,there's nothing wrong with it.
Yeah.
As long as it's high value.
Yeah.
Go with it.
You know, and because theecosystem needs, it needs to be
able to, convey that, value tothe end markets.
So that the ecosystem grows fromthe top line.
(09:24):
Up.
Oliver Buschmann (09:24):
Then we, your differentiation, right?
And then I like your comment onthe sensing side.
Yeah.
The better answer.
Quite, quite excited about it.
I think this is, the network hascompletely new capabilities that
it sends around.
Can like, discover drones, noflight zones and discover even
parking lots.
people on tracks or bordercontrolling it.
That's quite exciting.
It could be an API.
Leonard Lee (09:44):
Exactly, exactly.
Or collections of APIs.
And I think that's one of themindset shifts that, folks need
to make it is just not justindividual APIs, I've seen in
the halls, of.
MWC here at Fiera, severalexamples of companies that are
actually working on compoundapplications that tap a number
(10:05):
of different network APIs aswell as communication APIs and
Oh, okay.
Cloud APIs to create, Yeah.
Right.
And so, these network APIs,create a infrastructure.
Management or interface.
Right.
Yeah.
That allows you to then takeadvantage of the differentiated
conductivity capabilities aswell as information and do
(10:27):
really complex things.
Yeah.
Right.
Because each of the network APIssuggests something very simple.
But in the hands of a developer,these network APIs can do some
very powerful things.
Oliver Buschmann (10:38):
Yeah.
So location, APIs that's alreadyin store.
Yeah.
we have the authorization fraudAPIs already in store.
The sim spot number ade.
So verify to do, for example,park prevention.
Yeah.
For, for banks.
Mm.
or for retailers mm-hmm.
also think like KYC match that,that s know what, what retailers
use, so they kind of getinformation of their customer.
Mm-hmm.
(10:59):
So even if your customer enteredthe store, kind of knows what
the customer needs.
So it can actually, use that.
And then also network insightslike, like sim count, even in
rain for weather conditions orfor an insurance company that
wants to know this kind ofinformation.
So those are already in store.
And then of course there's aroadmap behind it, to bring this
alive.
Leonard Lee (11:17):
Yeah.
Oliver Buschmann (11:17):
Yeah.
Leonard Lee (11:18):
I think that's a good start.
Actually.
That's a starting point.
It's a good starting point.
And I think it's just a matterof developers understanding
number one, the capabilities arethere.
the information, the contextualinformation augmentation is
there.
and I think that's exactlywhat's happening with a lot of
the fraud, preventionapplications, which actually I'm
(11:39):
quite a fan of, I think is just.
a great example of how justinformation off of the network,
can create some very importantcapabilities to businesses in,
building more robust, trustcapabilities and applications.
Services, yeah.
If you will, that they can thenplug up into their business
applications.
Oliver Buschmann (12:00):
So, Good.
So then now we're like kind of,on top of the architecture,
right?
so how do we build theecosystem?
So you mentioned like we need 5GSA, we need programmable
networks for this to make wedifferentiated.
Okay.
maybe we have a look at the,what this really takes for the
network.
Let's do it.
So why don't we have a look athow, what it really takes the
network to, to make this realYeah.
Growth opportunities,differentiation, but also
(12:20):
automation.
Yeah.
How did automation really work?
Yeah.
So we are here at the, thecenter of it.
So you see AI in Ron that'sessentially building AI into
the, embedded, into the radioaccess network.
Yeah.
So that's like, mainly energysavings, like for example for
predicting workloads andsleeping cells.
Massive MIO, like, and loweringkind of the energy consumption
(12:44):
quite successful already.
we have intelligent automation.
That's essentially the layer ontop of it.
Yeah.
So how do you do, orchestrationof the operations?
much, much, more efficient.
Yeah.
And on the other side we have,what we call, Ericsson
Intelligent Automation Platform.
Yes.
Essentially it's kind of theSMO, like a service dimensional
orchestration, but it's allowingothers to build our apps and of
(13:06):
course Ericsson as well.
I like to build our apps on topof it, and that's really
generates a lot of, growth rightnow.
So we have what.
60 of them mixed applicationalready.
A lot of them are AI based.
one and a half thousand BOL was,so that's really growing quite
fast.
And that's a good thing to justtalk about the automation and
ecosystem that we're buildingaround it.
Leonard Lee (13:25):
Yeah.
Well, you know, I'm a big fan ofSMOs and then Yeah.
And, you know, the, Ericsson,automation platform.
Oliver Buschmann (13:32):
Yeah.
Leonard Lee (13:33):
And, I think it also has another purpose, Which
is to help operators, not only,manage the network, right?
But because there's like this,uh, Multi-Tech, multi-vendor
integration layer on the bottom,it can also serve as a very
important, migration tool or,um, that's true.
(13:55):
Middleware, right?
That's true.
And so as you're looking at,Transforming network.
Yeah.
And making this transition, youknow, moving along the
modernization path.
it can be a really importanttool and I think a lot of
operators are starting torealize that, Because you're not
gonna switch over your entire,network overnight and you're
(14:15):
entire, portfolio overnight.
And in fact, it could take.
A long time.
And so having a tool like that,a framework like that, that
helps to do
Oliver Buschmann (14:24):
Yeah, exactly.
It's even both, right?
It says multi-vendor, but alsomulti-domain, right.
This is also on, and then itgoes across the network itself.
Leonard Lee (14:32):
Yeah.
And I remember when you guysannounced it.
Yeah.
And I wrote about it.
That's exactly what I tunedinto.
And I thought, Hey, you knowwhat, in order to.
Get the ball moving or greasethe wheels to what we talked
about earlier, the 5G essaytransition.
This could be a really importanttool.
And then, it, it's interestingto see now years later,
(14:53):
everyone's kind of gettingexcited about it.
Yeah.
But we're still kind of early Ithought.
You know, X app's probably alittle too early.
Our apps, that's probably gonnabe the starting point that's
still over skating, especiallyif, you know, operators start to
find value in, an SMO type.
a platform and tool
Oliver Buschmann (15:11):
and we have two big installations already.
So you've seen the at and t.
that's what's already happening.
We have a number of others inEurope, also in Asia.
Yeah.
Coming to live now.
That's the time where it'sreally gets exactly.
Scale.
Leonard Lee (15:22):
Yeah.
It's gonna be interesting to seehow they leverage, uh, that tool
and that platform in theirmodernization efforts.
Right?
And as much as it's going to,help with the automation.
We have the network and progresstheir capabilities in, being
able to handle actually thecomplexity of, uh, of 5G
Network.
(15:42):
Right.
Especially as they make thetransition to a standalone.
Oliver Buschmann (15:46):
Yeah.
So we went, through a whole lotof things, right.
We went 5G yesterday.
We went through networks, wentthrough autonomous, automation.
Yeah.
Automative networks.
The whole ecosystem on top ofit.
Yeah.
So that's kind of how the wholething comes together.
Yeah.
I'm remembering your frameworks.
I guess that's kind of the pool.
Leonard Lee (16:02):
Yeah, but you forgot something.
Oh, which one is it?
The topic that everyone wastalking about and continues to
talk about, which is themonetization piece.
Oh, that's even on top.
Oh, come on.
You gotta make money out.
You better money investments.
Right.
ROI.
It's all about ROI.
Yeah.
Oliver Buschmann (16:19):
Yeah.
And as everyone, it'sinteresting like how it
develops.
Right.
I would like to hear your viewas well, like I can see this
going in like some use, likefixable access is obvious,
right?
Yeah.
It's already money.
Yeah.
Enterprise obvious ranking moneyis scaling on the
differentiation?
I would say we have theenterprise part.
Mm-hmm.
I think we've seen that like,broadcasting point of sales
(16:40):
terminals.
I think that's now clear, clearvalue proposition.
clear pricing, monetization ofedge.
Yeah.
on the consumer side is probablysomething that will take a
little bit longer.
Yeah.
but I do see things in the USlike there are some premium
offerings that actually getquite well, into the market.
in China you have these, uh,influencer, kind of micro
segments Yeah.
(17:01):
That we're addressing, whichworks quite well.
women in Singapore, so it lookslike there's some honest now
coming together.
And what are you allowing us to,to differentiate in the consumer
side.
Leonard Lee (17:10):
Yeah.
And my view is this, is that asyou're modernizing your network
you need to modernize youroperations as well.
Right?
that will enable you tomodernize your business and
afford you the flexibility tobasically not only deliver the
services, but ultimately youhave to be able to transfer us
the entire stack.
Right.
So.
(17:30):
You have the infrastructure.
Composable, programmable,Infrastructure.
That translates into services.
Right.
Network services that can beboth informational and
connectivity related.
And then you have to now,interface with your customers or
the enterprise, and that's whereyou need to have that modernized
operations.
(17:50):
Right.
And this is something that I.
Wrote about emphasized two yearsago.
It's really good to see that.
Focus on that now, you know.
Uh, so O-S-S-B-S-S-C-P-Q-I thinkis really important.
So that, your CFO is not tellingyou, no, we can't bill for this
service.
The way that is structured, youhave that flexibility to
(18:11):
actually monetize.
these new services that areliterally kind of like off
script, for a lot of operators.
And so there's this whole newfrontier of opportunities that
can be tapped, but you need tohave that full stack kind of
capability.
And I know that you guys have,you guys are up and down the
stack.
Oliver Buschmann (18:30):
I think it's also interesting how now
operators use this opportunityto change their own business
model.
I think because think of now wehave best effort, basically it's
dollar per gigabyte.
Essentially.
That is right.
But how does it evolve?
Like in the, airline industry.
You say there's an economyclass, there's a premium class,
so there's a first class, Ormore dynamic models.
(18:50):
Like you do it for an event,like for like an segment, like,
influencers.
You do that waiting more dynamicbusiness models.
So I could imagine that's goingtowards that direction or we see
much more kind ofdifferentiated, segmented and
also more dynamic businessmodels come forward.
Leonard Lee (19:06):
I also see it.
As multimodal, like, so you havedifferent ways get to point A
and B.
Right.
So what we're looking at in thefuture with, this 5G future,
especially as you make thetransition to sa Is different
ways of getting to point A topoint B and everyone wants to go
in different, destinations.
(19:27):
They may be like services, butthe thing is you can get there
different ways and those.
those are adjacent and net newservices and, that are enabled
by new capabilities that aregonna be part of the 5G
infrastructure.
Yeah.
And network.
And so I think that's reallythe, again, the mindset shift
(19:48):
that the industry needs to makeand do it in a material
practical way.
as these capabilities andnetworks become realized,
through modernization efforts,You can head a lot of the
thinking.
Yeah.
ahead just by thinkingpractically about, market use
cases and, really getting downto.
The practical technical level,How are we changing the mobile
(20:12):
computing or the fixed wirelesscomputing
Oliver Buschmann (20:15):
Yeah.
Leonard Lee (20:15):
model for a particular use case.
And then I think a lot ofexciting things can happen, and
we realize, right?
Oliver Buschmann (20:23):
Yeah, I agree with That.
So that's gonna be interestinghow this turns out.
Right?
So basically the whole thing hasto come together from everything
yesterday, probably into abusiness model, like you said
this.
Yeah.
This is gonna be a interestingjourney ahead.
I'm curious what we see the nextyear in Mobile Law of Congress.
Leonard Lee (20:41):
I think that we're going to see an essential and,
urgent need to focus on movingthe law.
And I think it's alreadystarting here.
in this conference where it saysthere's more of a practical, how
you go this.
Yeah.
How do we, get to that next stepin the 5G journey, which I quite
(21:01):
frankly think has lost thespotlight over the last few
years The industry really needsto put that spotlight back on 5G
so that we're talking about itmore.
Yeah.
And we're now, getting preparedfor this frontier that's right
in front of us.
Like again, there's a backlog oftechnology and there's a lot of
(21:23):
opportunity behind that backlog.
And so this is where theindustry really needs to start
thinking about, how do we get tothat point where we unlock.
and start to digest.
Yeah.
And, you know, put into thefield these really great
capabilities.
I mean, pretty significantchanges that, we can anticipate,
(21:46):
but also a lot of opportunitiesas well.
and readiness is gonna be a bigthing, right?
And that means you have to getup the maturity curve.
Up and down that stack that wewere talking about.
Oliver Buschmann (21:57):
Yeah, I agree.
And I think that the turningpoint is really that, that you
have five GS area there.
You have everything, all thelayers in play that we destroy
went through.
And then hope next year we'llsee like hundreds of
implementations let's keep ourfingers chain being real.
Yeah.
All right then.
Uh, let's do it.
Great to see you.
Great.
Having this chat with you was anice journey across The whole
(22:19):
stack.
That's a whole stack, wholestack journey.
when do we do, the guitarplaying then on by June
Leonard Lee (22:26):
next week.
How's that?
That, okay.
All right.
I'll see you on the other sideof the pond.
great to see you here.
Uh, Congress Leonard.
Leonard Lee (00:03):
Hi.
How it
Oliver Buschmann (00:04):
going?
Leonard Lee (00:05):
Very good.
Oliver Buschmann (00:06):
how was
Leonard Lee (00:06):
your show so far?
exhausting.
I think that's the only word youcan use when you reach the
fourth day of MWC.
Oliver Buschmann (00:13):
yeah, I'm have to be honest, I'm a bit more
introvert, but I think it'sreally energizing.
It is.
It is people.
It is seeing everything at lifereal.
Leonard Lee (00:23):
I'm pretty excited.
there's just so much foranalysts to absorb.
when we come here, we're roamingthe halls, we're having
briefings and meeting people.
And I think one of thehighlights this year definitely
is, the interactions that I'vehad with, Ericsson and, some of
the observations that I've made.
in terms of key trends thatwe're seeing in the industry,
it's just a lot to absorb, it'sgreat to have an opportunity to
(00:45):
kind of cap things a little bit.
Maybe let's,
Oliver Buschmann (00:48):
let's go through it.
Leonard Lee (00:49):
I need a little bit of time to synthesize stuff in
my brain here,
Oliver Buschmann (00:53):
let's have a chat.
It's good.
Let's start.
Maybe was just talking a bitabout what's becoming real now?
Like last year we talked aboutproof of concepts.
Yeah, you showed, for example,like a video broadcasting more
devices coming online now.
It seems like it's coming real,right?
Yeah.
Now we see cameras actuallyusing it.
What do you think?
Leonard Lee (01:11):
You can only regard it as a positive thing, right.
And, especially as, operators,especially pioneering operators
start to make that transition to5G Se I think they're really
Discovering.
Finally, wow.
We have all this technologythat's backlogged right behind
this 5G SA wall, and as youstart to.
(01:32):
transition to the other side,there's all these,
possibilities, especially as youstart to broaden your
deployment.
Yeah.
And then you start to capitalizeon the densification of the
network that you've, implementedin the run up to your
transition.
yeah.
I think we're starting to seethe potential.
And that's the interesting thingis we're kind of in early.
(01:55):
Days Of realizing a broader,realization of the benefits of
5G.
Oliver Buschmann (02:02):
Yeah.
Leonard Lee (02:03):
Yeah,
Oliver Buschmann (02:03):
I agree.
I mean, we've seen of course inthe past, like pixel, Alexa,
whatever there.
Pretty, pretty good use case.
super successful.
very good money for operators.
we see on the back actually hereon the camera is all the
enterprise, work that seems tobe going from POCs to production
as well right now.
You see manufacturing, forest,all this stuff coming alive.
That's good.
And I agree that's probably thenext thing that will happen.
(02:24):
Like how do we do realdifferentiated services,
differentiated connectivity.
We do quite a few examples here.
Leonard Lee (02:31):
Yeah.
Oliver Buschmann (02:31):
Yeah.
Leonard Lee (02:32):
And I think the possibilities are even broader
and I think deeper.
And have a potential to be moretransformative, especially as we
start to see, more of the 5G.
features start to exemptthemselves through not only the
network, but also in theapplications and use cases.
(02:53):
Right?
So, you know, that's somethingthat I'm always keeping an eye
out for.
And it is good to see theadoption and the traction that's
being made.
but I will have to say, there'sa lot more to be done, right?
Again, how do we trigger thattransition to 5G sa.
And, I'll keep saying it overand over again.
Yeah.
we need to figure out how to getoperators to realize that
(03:19):
benefit.
And, what I think is verypositive this year Is there
seems to be a realization of theneed to do that.
Right.
Especially in the context of,Competitiveness.
Right.
National or region morecompetitiveness.
Oliver Buschmann (03:32):
I agree.
I mean the anecdote that, likewhat's, what really needs to
happen now to make this real?
I think you mentioned 5G SA kindof, that's the baseline.
everybody has to have.
Then we are building on top ofit.
You've probably seenprogrammable networks.
So how do you actually make thenetwork programmable in the
sense of it can actually be onenetwork differentiate.
Opposite.
we may wanna look at, autonomousnetworks.
So that's gonna, and key enablerand then like how do you bring
(03:55):
it to developer?
Like you mentioned, like how doyou build an ecosystem around
it?
Right.
And maybe we can look at theAona demo and the area to see
like, how did it really work?
Yeah.
What do you think?
Do it.
Should we move over?
Yeah.
Okay.
So I thought we have a look at,how it really works with Aduna.
But you wanna have a look atour, what we call Hall of Fame
here.
Oh, is this the Hall of Fame?
(04:15):
Yeah, it's the Hall of Fame.
Okay.
Wow.
So you see we have now, on theoperator side, Katie DI also
joined right?
Recently.
Ian joined very recently and onthe platform side we had info
joining.
Yeah.
we had Cinch joining justrecently.
Yeah.
And, we have a, do you know orpartnership now with the Bridge
Alliance.
So the ecosystem seems to cometogether here.
(04:38):
Yeah.
So we're getting really goodmomentum, really good tailwind,
to really make it happen.
Yes.
So why does this matter?
I think if a developer reallywants to get into like a
function, let's say a fraudprevention.
Yeah.
They want to have a globalapplication.
Right.
And how do you do this?
You can only do it if you havelike all operators or laws of
(04:59):
operators joining.
And really global coverage andotherwise it's gonna be
difficult For developers to useit.
I think we should.
Be at a developer platform withthe developers and not build
something separate.
I think the developer should bethere while he always has
Programming and just get use ofit.
Leonard Lee (05:15):
Yeah.
Obviously I've, written quite abit about, network APIs for
quite some time.
Right.
And like your framework follow
Oliver Buschmann (05:23):
put end-to-end framework.
Leonard Lee (05:24):
It was sort of necessary because I think.
especially what you guys aredoing with the douna tends to be
a little bit different.
And, this year at MWCI I've,gotten some confirmation that
there was a need to clarifyexactly what the role of a douna
is, what it is that the JV isreally trying to do.
(05:45):
Right.
and I've seen that as like aprogression, you know.
Network APIs have been a thingforever.
Right.
And, yeah.
It's not like you guys decidedone day, hey, let's do network
APIs and, establish an exchangeand I call an exchange like
aduna.
this is a progression there.
(06:06):
There's, been a significanteffort to create.
A standard set of, APIdeviations.
Yeah.
Right.
I agree.
So that developers can accessexposed network capabilities.
And now we're in a place whereexactly to your point we're
looking at a future wheredifferent, what you guys call
(06:27):
differentiated connectivity Isreally going to be a thing.
We've heard of network slicing.
We've heard of all these great.
5G capabilities.
You mentioned the programmablenetwork and how now the
infrastructure itself isbecoming software defined,
increasing the software definedand cloud native.
Oliver Buschmann (06:48):
Yeah.
Leonard Lee (06:48):
Having these things now fall into place, we're
looking at a different scenariowhere these network APIs can
really take a role.
it's like a continuum, right?
It wasn't, it was never like,Hey, you.
Flip a switch and all of asudden you go from, no, it's a
journey.
Right?
A long journey.
Yeah.
That's something that, theindustry really needs to be
reminded of.
(07:09):
Yeah.
just simply because, is such along time scale for these things
to evolve and then hitinflection points.
And I think Aduna comes at apoint where, it can really,
catalyze the industry.
Oliver Buschmann (07:23):
Yeah.
Leonard Lee (07:24):
And really take the industry to that place that I
think we were talking about, 5GBeing sort of this, innovation
platform.
Yeah.
Especially for businesses,right?
Yeah.
You going transcendingconnectivity.
Transcending, what operatorstraditionally, um, we're
providing in terms ofcapabilities and services.
Oliver Buschmann (07:44):
Oh, I agree.
Well, I thought it was alsointeresting that we're now going
really beyond connectivity.
And, it has been always just,basically best effort.
Right now we're gettingdifferentiation.
Then we are adding also newcapabilities like quad
prevention, like locationinformation.
Like a lot of her ABIs arecoming to live that are actually
going beyond.
No, I like that point
Leonard Lee (08:02):
I've written, years ago about the inevitable.
changing nature or the evolvingnature of what we call the
network infrastructure, right?
And if you look at the 3G PProadmap, we have things like
integrated sensing.
All these new capabilities arerelated to quite honestly, iot
Yeah.
That make the infrastructurequite different from what Yeah.
(08:23):
Uh, we thought of it beforewhere, like you were saying,
we're just, providing besteffort connectivity now.
Now it's all of a sudden more,more, right?
Yes.
All this data can come off ofthe network and be leveraged in,
business applications.
And I think, the, these,security related Yeah.
Functions.
And, um, information that cancome off the network to support,
(08:46):
let's say authorization,authentication, I think before
start.
Right.
Very, very exciting things.
I mean, it sound, they soundpedestrian.
But they're gonna becomeessential, I think.
Yeah.
You know, it's so much
Oliver Buschmann (08:57):
easier to do, right?
You don't need to type innumbers anymore.
It's just, it's just, no.
You know what,
Leonard Lee (09:01):
you gotta start off with high value, low hanging
fruit.
You know, low hanging fruit,there's nothing wrong with it.
Yeah.
As long as it's high value.
Yeah.
Go with it.
You know, and because theecosystem needs, it needs to be
able to, convey that, value tothe end markets.
So that the ecosystem grows fromthe top line.
(09:24):
Up.
Oliver Buschmann (09:24):
Then we, your differentiation, right?
And then I like your comment onthe sensing side.
Yeah.
The better answer.
Quite, quite excited about it.
I think this is, the network hascompletely new capabilities that
it sends around.
Can like, discover drones, noflight zones and discover even
parking lots.
people on tracks or bordercontrolling it.
That's quite exciting.
It could be an API.
Leonard Lee (09:44):
Exactly, exactly.
Or collections of APIs.
And I think that's one of themindset shifts that, folks need
to make it is just not justindividual APIs, I've seen in
the halls, of.
MWC here at Fiera, severalexamples of companies that are
actually working on compoundapplications that tap a number
(10:05):
of different network APIs aswell as communication APIs and
Oh, okay.
Cloud APIs to create, Yeah.
Right.
And so, these network APIs,create a infrastructure.
Management or interface.
Right.
Yeah.
That allows you to then takeadvantage of the differentiated
conductivity capabilities aswell as information and do
(10:27):
really complex things.
Yeah.
Right.
Because each of the network APIssuggests something very simple.
But in the hands of a developer,these network APIs can do some
very powerful things.
Oliver Buschmann (10:38):
Yeah.
So location, APIs that's alreadyin store.
Yeah.
we have the authorization fraudAPIs already in store.
The sim spot number ade.
So verify to do, for example,park prevention.
Yeah.
For, for banks.
Mm.
or for retailers mm-hmm.
also think like KYC match that,that s know what, what retailers
use, so they kind of getinformation of their customer.
Mm-hmm.
(10:59):
So even if your customer enteredthe store, kind of knows what
the customer needs.
So it can actually, use that.
And then also network insightslike, like sim count, even in
rain for weather conditions orfor an insurance company that
wants to know this kind ofinformation.
So those are already in store.
And then of course there's aroadmap behind it, to bring this
alive.
Leonard Lee (11:17):
Yeah.
Oliver Buschmann (11:17):
Yeah.
Leonard Lee (11:18):
I think that's a good start.
Actually.
That's a starting point.
It's a good starting point.
And I think it's just a matterof developers understanding
number one, the capabilities arethere.
the information, the contextualinformation augmentation is
there.
and I think that's exactlywhat's happening with a lot of
the fraud, preventionapplications, which actually I'm
(11:39):
quite a fan of, I think is just.
a great example of how justinformation off of the network,
can create some very importantcapabilities to businesses in,
building more robust, trustcapabilities and applications.
Services, yeah.
If you will, that they can thenplug up into their business
applications.
Oliver Buschmann (12:00):
So, Good.
So then now we're like kind of,on top of the architecture,
right?
so how do we build theecosystem?
So you mentioned like we need 5GSA, we need programmable
networks for this to make wedifferentiated.
Okay.
maybe we have a look at the,what this really takes for the
network.
Let's do it.
So why don't we have a look athow, what it really takes the
network to, to make this realYeah.
Growth opportunities,differentiation, but also
(12:20):
automation.
Yeah.
How did automation really work?
Yeah.
So we are here at the, thecenter of it.
So you see AI in Ron that'sessentially building AI into
the, embedded, into the radioaccess network.
Yeah.
So that's like, mainly energysavings, like for example for
predicting workloads andsleeping cells.
Massive MIO, like, and loweringkind of the energy consumption
(12:44):
quite successful already.
we have intelligent automation.
That's essentially the layer ontop of it.
Yeah.
So how do you do, orchestrationof the operations?
much, much, more efficient.
Yeah.
And on the other side we have,what we call, Ericsson
Intelligent Automation Platform.
Yes.
Essentially it's kind of theSMO, like a service dimensional
orchestration, but it's allowingothers to build our apps and of
(13:06):
course Ericsson as well.
I like to build our apps on topof it, and that's really
generates a lot of, growth rightnow.
So we have what.
60 of them mixed applicationalready.
A lot of them are AI based.
one and a half thousand BOL was,so that's really growing quite
fast.
And that's a good thing to justtalk about the automation and
ecosystem that we're buildingaround it.
Leonard Lee (13:25):
Yeah.
Well, you know, I'm a big fan ofSMOs and then Yeah.
And, you know, the, Ericsson,automation platform.
Oliver Buschmann (13:32):
Yeah.
Leonard Lee (13:33):
And, I think it also has another purpose, Which
is to help operators, not only,manage the network, right?
But because there's like this,uh, Multi-Tech, multi-vendor
integration layer on the bottom,it can also serve as a very
important, migration tool or,um, that's true.
(13:55):
Middleware, right?
That's true.
And so as you're looking at,Transforming network.
Yeah.
And making this transition, youknow, moving along the
modernization path.
it can be a really importanttool and I think a lot of
operators are starting torealize that, Because you're not
gonna switch over your entire,network overnight and you're
(14:15):
entire, portfolio overnight.
And in fact, it could take.
A long time.
And so having a tool like that,a framework like that, that
helps to do
Oliver Buschmann (14:24):
Yeah, exactly.
It's even both, right?
It says multi-vendor, but alsomulti-domain, right.
This is also on, and then itgoes across the network itself.
Leonard Lee (14:32):
Yeah.
And I remember when you guysannounced it.
Yeah.
And I wrote about it.
That's exactly what I tunedinto.
And I thought, Hey, you knowwhat, in order to.
Get the ball moving or greasethe wheels to what we talked
about earlier, the 5G essaytransition.
This could be a really importanttool.
And then, it, it's interestingto see now years later,
(14:53):
everyone's kind of gettingexcited about it.
Yeah.
But we're still kind of early Ithought.
You know, X app's probably alittle too early.
Our apps, that's probably gonnabe the starting point that's
still over skating, especiallyif, you know, operators start to
find value in, an SMO type.
a platform and tool
Oliver Buschmann (15:11):
and we have two big installations already.
So you've seen the at and t.
that's what's already happening.
We have a number of others inEurope, also in Asia.
Yeah.
Coming to live now.
That's the time where it'sreally gets exactly.
Scale.
Leonard Lee (15:22):
Yeah.
It's gonna be interesting to seehow they leverage, uh, that tool
and that platform in theirmodernization efforts.
Right?
And as much as it's going to,help with the automation.
We have the network and progresstheir capabilities in, being
able to handle actually thecomplexity of, uh, of 5G
Network.
(15:42):
Right.
Especially as they make thetransition to a standalone.
Oliver Buschmann (15:46):
Yeah.
So we went, through a whole lotof things, right.
We went 5G yesterday.
We went through networks, wentthrough autonomous, automation.
Yeah.
Automative networks.
The whole ecosystem on top ofit.
Yeah.
So that's kind of how the wholething comes together.
Yeah.
I'm remembering your frameworks.
I guess that's kind of the pool.
Leonard Lee (16:02):
Yeah, but you forgot something.
Oh, which one is it?
The topic that everyone wastalking about and continues to
talk about, which is themonetization piece.
Oh, that's even on top.
Oh, come on.
You gotta make money out.
You better money investments.
Right.
ROI.
It's all about ROI.
Yeah.
Oliver Buschmann (16:19):
Yeah.
And as everyone, it'sinteresting like how it
develops.
Right.
I would like to hear your viewas well, like I can see this
going in like some use, likefixable access is obvious,
right?
Yeah.
It's already money.
Yeah.
Enterprise obvious ranking moneyis scaling on the
differentiation?
I would say we have theenterprise part.
Mm-hmm.
I think we've seen that like,broadcasting point of sales
(16:40):
terminals.
I think that's now clear, clearvalue proposition.
clear pricing, monetization ofedge.
Yeah.
on the consumer side is probablysomething that will take a
little bit longer.
Yeah.
but I do see things in the USlike there are some premium
offerings that actually getquite well, into the market.
in China you have these, uh,influencer, kind of micro
segments Yeah.
(17:01):
That we're addressing, whichworks quite well.
women in Singapore, so it lookslike there's some honest now
coming together.
And what are you allowing us to,to differentiate in the consumer
side.
Leonard Lee (17:10):
Yeah.
And my view is this, is that asyou're modernizing your network
you need to modernize youroperations as well.
Right?
that will enable you tomodernize your business and
afford you the flexibility tobasically not only deliver the
services, but ultimately youhave to be able to transfer us
the entire stack.
Right.
So.
(17:30):
You have the infrastructure.
Composable, programmable,Infrastructure.
That translates into services.
Right.
Network services that can beboth informational and
connectivity related.
And then you have to now,interface with your customers or
the enterprise, and that's whereyou need to have that modernized
operations.
(17:50):
Right.
And this is something that I.
Wrote about emphasized two yearsago.
It's really good to see that.
Focus on that now, you know.
Uh, so O-S-S-B-S-S-C-P-Q-I thinkis really important.
So that, your CFO is not tellingyou, no, we can't bill for this
service.
The way that is structured, youhave that flexibility to
(18:11):
actually monetize.
these new services that areliterally kind of like off
script, for a lot of operators.
And so there's this whole newfrontier of opportunities that
can be tapped, but you need tohave that full stack kind of
capability.
And I know that you guys have,you guys are up and down the
stack.
Oliver Buschmann (18:30):
I think it's also interesting how now
operators use this opportunityto change their own business
model.
I think because think of now wehave best effort, basically it's
dollar per gigabyte.
Essentially.
That is right.
But how does it evolve?
Like in the, airline industry.
You say there's an economyclass, there's a premium class,
so there's a first class, Ormore dynamic models.
(18:50):
Like you do it for an event,like for like an segment, like,
influencers.
You do that waiting more dynamicbusiness models.
So I could imagine that's goingtowards that direction or we see
much more kind ofdifferentiated, segmented and
also more dynamic businessmodels come forward.
Leonard Lee (19:06):
I also see it.
As multimodal, like, so you havedifferent ways get to point A
and B.
Right.
So what we're looking at in thefuture with, this 5G future,
especially as you make thetransition to sa Is different
ways of getting to point A topoint B and everyone wants to go
in different, destinations.
(19:27):
They may be like services, butthe thing is you can get there
different ways and those.
those are adjacent and net newservices and, that are enabled
by new capabilities that aregonna be part of the 5G
infrastructure.
Yeah.
And network.
And so I think that's reallythe, again, the mindset shift
(19:48):
that the industry needs to makeand do it in a material
practical way.
as these capabilities andnetworks become realized,
through modernization efforts,You can head a lot of the
thinking.
Yeah.
ahead just by thinkingpractically about, market use
cases and, really getting downto.
The practical technical level,How are we changing the mobile
(20:12):
computing or the fixed wirelesscomputing
Oliver Buschmann (20:15):
Yeah.
Leonard Lee (20:15):
model for a particular use case.
And then I think a lot ofexciting things can happen, and
we realize, right?
Oliver Buschmann (20:23):
Yeah, I agree with That.
So that's gonna be interestinghow this turns out.
Right?
So basically the whole thing hasto come together from everything
yesterday, probably into abusiness model, like you said
this.
Yeah.
This is gonna be a interestingjourney ahead.
I'm curious what we see the nextyear in Mobile Law of Congress.
Leonard Lee (20:41):
I think that we're going to see an essential and,
urgent need to focus on movingthe law.
And I think it's alreadystarting here.
in this conference where it saysthere's more of a practical, how
you go this.
Yeah.
How do we, get to that next stepin the 5G journey, which I quite
(21:01):
frankly think has lost thespotlight over the last few
years The industry really needsto put that spotlight back on 5G
so that we're talking about itmore.
Yeah.
And we're now, getting preparedfor this frontier that's right
in front of us.
Like again, there's a backlog oftechnology and there's a lot of
(21:23):
opportunity behind that backlog.
And so this is where theindustry really needs to start
thinking about, how do we get tothat point where we unlock.
and start to digest.
Yeah.
And, you know, put into thefield these really great
capabilities.
I mean, pretty significantchanges that, we can anticipate,
(21:46):
but also a lot of opportunitiesas well.
and readiness is gonna be a bigthing, right?
And that means you have to getup the maturity curve.
Up and down that stack that wewere talking about.
Oliver Buschmann (21:57):
Yeah, I agree.
And I think that the turningpoint is really that, that you
have five GS area there.
You have everything, all thelayers in play that we destroy
went through.
And then hope next year we'llsee like hundreds of
implementations let's keep ourfingers chain being real.
Yeah.
All right then.
Uh, let's do it.
Great to see you.
Great.
Having this chat with you was anice journey across The whole
(22:19):
stack.
That's a whole stack, wholestack journey.
when do we do, the guitarplaying then on by June
Leonard Lee (22:26):
next week.
How's that?
That, okay.
All right.
I'll see you on the other sideof the pond.
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