The Open Evolution of the 5G Network | Juniper Global Summit 2022

0:08 Hello, I'm Raj Yavatkar,

0:10 CTO for Juniper Networks.

0:13 Today, the development and deployment of 5G network infrastructure

0:17 has seen a big push towards what is known as Open RAN

0:20 or O-RAN mobile network architectures.

0:24 That architecture disaggregates the traditionally integrated style

0:28 . --> into  

0:28 many different components that can be supplied by many different vendors.

0:34 The service providers and developers would integrate those together

0:38 to provide a completely new value.

0:40 They can take advantage of artificial intelligence

0:42 and machine learning in the process to optimize the networks.

0:46 We, at Juniper Networks,

0:47 believe that removing the obstacles

0:51 for making the O-RAN desegregated architecture happen,

0:55 is important for growth of 5G networks

0:57 and also created a thriving open ecosystem of application developers.

1:02 Today, I have the pleasure of talking with Marc Rouanne,

1:06 executive vice president and chief network officer at Dish Wireless.

1:10 Marc, thank you for joining me today.

1:13 Thank you, Raj.

1:15 First, starting with your vision for Open RAN based 5G networks

1:20 and how you want to see the industry develop,

1:23 and what Dish Wireless is trying to do.

1:27 We're lucky at Dish because we're starting a brand new 5G network

1:30 when the ecosystem is maturing towards Open RAN.

1:36 Open RAN, for us, is a lot of things.

1:38 It's a virtualized software first.

1:43 Basically, we consume the RAN software,

1:45 like in the cloud, microservices, and scalable.

1:50 All the things we see on the cloud now we can see on the RAN.

1:54 The second thing is it's open.

1:56 Open means that you can mix and match different vendors and ideas.

2:04 It accelerates innovation because some very good vendors maybe busy doing some things,

2:10 but then you have a new startup or a new enterprise that is coming with new ideas

2:14 and they can drop in and bring innovation to us.

2:18 On top of that, what Open RAN brings is that it allows other players like the silicon vendors

2:26 to inject their know-how and their investment capabilities.

2:31 For us, we have new cards, new accelerators,

2:34 new silicon, it's Christmas every day.

2:38 That's pretty cool to see.

2:40 In that context, if I may,

2:41 how do you see Juniper Networks playing a role and helping Dish Wireless?

2:47 We see Juniper as a thought leader in the industry.

2:51 We've been working with Juniper for almost two years now.

2:55 Juniper has been at the forefront when it comes to virtualization

3:00 of software starting with the routing capabilities vRouters

3:06 and sales side routers that are capable to run on what we love,

3:11 which is Kubernetes and cloud architectures.

3:16 I think Juniper is going further now in terms of automation

3:20 and application ecosystems and sees,

3:23 at least that's what I understand,

3:24 sees the power of AI and data so that you can put on top

3:28 of the classic networking capabilities and the classic networks,

3:33 you can put all these data-driven intelligence.

3:37 we share the same views.

3:39 You and I and our teams, we have had some very deep discussions,

3:43 and I think we share the same ambition there.

3:46 Good, thank you.

3:47 I think one of the things I also want to understand from you is that

3:50 O-RAN is completely new architecture, somewhat controversial.

3:55 Some of the vendors are not likely to accept it.

3:58 How do you see it evolving?

4:00 How do you see it happen in the industry?

4:04 I was at Barcelona for Mobile World Congress,

4:07 and I got convinced that everybody believes that virtual RAN and Open RAN is the way to go.

4:13 The debate is more like how fast can you go there if you have existing roadmaps,

4:19 existing chipsets, existing networks?

4:22 How do you embrace this new technology?

4:26 I don't think anybody is debating anymore that you want to be innovating in the cloud,

4:31 you want to use Kubernetes stacks,

4:33 you want to be scalable and microservice-based.

4:36 Even the more traditional vendors, I think,

4:39 have accepted and are investing in that direction.

4:43 It's going to be a journey because you are going to see different flavors.

4:46 People like us, because we're in Greenfield,

4:49 we can consume today but some more established players

4:54 and operators will take more time to consume.

4:57 They may decide to consume it for the enterprise, for the standard, you know what I mean?

5:00 There are different ways.

5:02 Over time, I have no doubt that the whole world is going to a virtualized software,

5:06 Open RAN, and cloud-native capabilities.

5:09 Now, that's good to know because we are betting on that.

5:11 I think our investments in O-RAN,

5:14 first time we are entering the mobile networks

5:15 with our RAN intelligence controller or cloud orchestration, and so on.

5:21 One question related to that is how critical you see

5:25 the application ecosystem developing to make O-RAN successful.

5:29 Well, the application ecosystem, as you call it,

5:32 is where the intelligence is going to be.

5:35 When you define a cloud RAN, Open RAN network,

5:39 you make it observable. The data is coming up and,

5:45 once the data is up, you can put applications of any form,

5:49 and a lot of them we have not even thought of or invented

5:52 that can make use of that data and then bring an extraordinary number of new benefits.

6:00 Like we've seen in the app stores for the smartphones,

6:04 it's pretty much unlimited what you can do once you have the compute and the data.

6:11 One of the most expensive resource in the 5G O-RAN architecture or otherwise is spectrum.

6:18 Do you see applications driving some new ways

6:21 of achieving spectrum utilization and efficiency?

6:26 Yes, actually,

6:28 I'm a technology geek and I love demonstrations and experimentation.

6:33 I've seen several times, in my life,

6:35 applications that were capable of improving the spectrum all the way up to or %,

6:42 for very specific applications.

6:44 Which is, for an engineer like me seriously, %, %.

6:50 Of course, we're not going to get this across the board, but even if we can,

6:55 on average, get a few percent of spectrum efficiency

6:59 because we all know the price and the cost of spectrum,

7:02 this is an incredible capability.

7:06 I would start with that, the spectrum efficiency for drones or for transportation

7:11 or for some very specific use cases where you can define

7:16 and adapt your scheduler and all your channel estimation

7:21 to actually what's happening because,

7:24 with the data, you can learn much more in-depth.

7:29 What about the slicing that happens in the radio access network

7:33 but also slicing happens in transport and core?

7:35 For example, we, at Juniper,

7:38 we are one the first one to support transport slicing and core network slicing.

7:43 What's your view of slicing,

7:44 the role it plays both in RAN as well as on end-to-end point basis?

7:49 Yes, slicing will happen all the way from the services

7:54 to the core of the transport and the RAN.

7:57 Actually, you know what?

7:58 I think the link is a formidable prototype of intelligent controllers,

8:03 but I expect to see the same capabilities for the transport, having intelligent controllers.

8:08 I know you guys are investing there and have a lot of assets there,

8:15 but I expect to see it at the cloud optimization layer,

8:20 having intelligent controllers that can optimize your resources at the cloud level,

8:24 and all the way for slices during the day, during the night,

8:28 depending on the geographies.

8:32 As I said, it seems to be pretty much in limited the type of things you can do.

8:37 One other aspect of this open ecosystem

8:40 and application development could be impact on sustainability.

8:44 How do we make networks more sustainable?

8:46 Do you have any thoughts on that with respect to what we could do?

8:49 Yes, traditionally, wireless networks have been designed for peak,

8:56 either peak during the day so you have like one hour during

8:59 which people consume more because they commute or they are home,

9:03 or for certain events like New Year's Eve,

9:08 which makes mobile networks pretty much empty

9:13 in other parts of the day during the night or during empty seasons.

9:19 With intelligent data and scalability and cloud-native,

9:23 you can scale up and down, you can steer the traffic,

9:26 you can steer the compute like we do in the cloud today.

9:30 Then you have a much more sustainable network

9:33 where you transmit in a much more efficient way,

9:36 and you can take down the power of the radios.

9:42 They consume a lot of power there on top of the mast.

9:46 You can adapt.

9:48 You can also steer the traffic.

9:49 For example, upgrading smartphones,

9:52 you don't want to do that during the busy hour.

9:54 You want to do that when the network is less busy or you want to offload it on Wi-Fi.

10:02 Once you have all these visibility and those slices and use cases,

10:05 yes, you can really have an impact on the cost of OPEX

10:11 and the power consumption of the network.

10:12 Okay.

10:14 I want to give you last word, Marc, with respect to,

10:17 just tell us about your vision and roadmap for Dish Wireless.

10:21 Where do you want to be in the next two years and what do we expect?

10:24 How Juniper Networks can also be there as a partner to help you?

10:29 I'll go back to the discussion you and I we had a few weeks back.

10:33 Today, I consider that we have done a classic cloud-native network,

10:37 where we can distribute advanced services based on the smartphones

10:43 and other classic devices.

10:45 But the next focus,

10:46 what we are discussing and we are discussing that together is

10:49 when you go to the enterprise,

10:51 how do you equip your SD-WAN with advanced mobility?

10:55 How do you have equipped with advanced security?

10:58 How do you give seamless remote access to SD-WAN

11:04 or facilities with people that are working remotely?

11:08 Then you move this capability to machines and sensors.

11:14 A lot of the internet capabilities today are still managed by devices

11:19 that are connected to the internet.

11:21 With 5G,

11:22 we can expand all the things we are doing to any device

11:26 that can be connected through wireless,

11:30 whatever the wireless may be, Wi-Fi, 5G,

11:33 or any other CB or C-band capabilities.

11:36 That's where we focusing now,

11:39 exploring those capabilities because the technology is there

11:43 and now it's how you consume it and how you expose it

11:46 and how you combine and integrate it to serve enterprises.

11:51 To say the least, I think, we, at Juniper Networks,

11:54 are excited to join you in your journey.

11:57 I hope you all the best and thank you for joining me today.

12:00 Thank you for your support and your thought leadership.

12:04 This is helping us a lot understanding where we need to go.

12:08 Thank you.