Special Report: Mobile World Congress 2022 (Part 2)
MWC 2022: Eight key themes
Here we offer a recap of the eight key topics that we identified at Mobile World Congress, from the point of view of the Wireless Watch universe. Some of these were covered in more detail in our first MWC special issue (published on March 3) and we delve into others in this edition. In all cases, we believe these themes will shape the fortunes of the mobile industry in 2022 and beyond, and we will revisit all of them on a regular basis to cover new developments and update our forecasts and analysis.
Private 5G:
There were scores of announcements, partnerships and demonstrations centered on private cellular networks, and particularly the migration to 5G. Private 5G is only one approach to enterprise cellular, and there was also plenty of interest in carrier-delivered B2B services enabled by 5G technologies like slicing – this was key to another of our themes, the Standalone core. There was also plenty of buzz around cellular IoT and the convergence of 5G with satellite to enable B2B services (see below).
But private 5G is important for two reasons in particular. One, enterprise services are the chief way for operators to monetize 5G better than 4G and private networks are the most immediate way to do this, since they can start with 4G and WiFi and build up to more advanced services based on 5G Standalone and converged core. And two, this is a market where many stakeholders have the chance to play a role in the value chain.
Companies from the enterprise services, systems integration, data center/IT and WiFi ecosystems all see a chance to take a greater share of the cellular market, which in turn, creates challenges for conventional operators. In some cases, new operators specifically focused on private networks, or new entrants such as hyperscalers, may take pole position, but this remains an industry – at least as represented at a GSMA show – that is primarily focused on major MNOs, and so is going all-out to enable those operators to take a strong slice of the value.
Today we look at announcements from three enterprise giants – Azure, HPE and Cisco. There were many interesting launches and partnerships among smaller players too, and these will be highlighted in coming weeks.
Open RAN and vRAN:
Open RAN was expected to be a huge subject of debate and discussion, and so it proved, as well as the source of a vast horde of announcements, some very interesting, some mainly hype.
The sheer volume of engagement on this subject does reflect the fact that Open RAN is at ‘peak hype’, but also enabled us to refine our assumptions and gather more evidence to support or refute them – which will feed into future forecasts and analysis. Some of the conversation deliberately blurred the boundaries between virtualized RAN and its open incarnation, and some of the most interesting breakthroughs actually applied to vRAN in general, with or without open interfaces.
There was also a bit of confusion around virtualized and non-virtualized Open RAN, which is a key issue, given that support for Open Fronthaul will be a check-box for operators claiming Open RAN support, but may not involve any of the more challenging elements that go with the massive task of implementing full vRAN.
Rakuten Symphony and other ecosystems:
This topic, and the next one, are subsets of the Open RAN theme. An important development, if Open RAN is to gain real scale, will be the formation of strong ecosystems. These may emerge around strong vendors, operators or open alliances. Representatives of all these groups are jostling to dominate the landscape by building large bases of partners together with broad platforms and pre-integrated elements.
Intel, Dell, Telecom Infra Project, Reliance Jio, NTT Docomo are just some of the leading contenders, but one company scored most highly in terms of the new projects and partnerships it announced at the show, and that was Rakuten Symphony – which of course, has been the cheerleader for Open RAN since Rakuten first set out its plan for a cloud-native network at MWC 2019, and now seeks to commercialize that effort, potentially turning into the ‘new Ericsson’ in the process.
RIC and xApps:
The RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC) is one of the genuine innovations of the Open RAN movement, and there was plenty of focus on companies that are developing underlying platforms to support multivendor xApps, or that are working on the xApps themselves.
These will be very important in making Open RAN deployable and will be key if it is to deliver something different from proprietary RAN, rather than just opening up the interfaces within established architectures. Amdocs, BT, Airhop and many others are among the companies that shared RIC and xApp developments, as we will analyze next week.
5G semiconductors:
There was a wealth of interest in the chips that will underpin 5G networks, some related to Open RAN – particularly its most challenging element, the virtualized distributed unit – others to devices, radios and other components.
For some chip companies that have not been active in cellular networks, new applications (such as IoT, 5G automotive or AI) provide a way in. And RAN virtualization, especially the vDU, helps to open a world of proprietary ASICs up to merchant processors. It also presents significant performance challenges that may be addressed by tier one vendors, but may also make the fortunes of some of the start-ups gathered in Barcelona, if open networks really do lower barriers to small suppliers right down to semiconductor level. This will be addressed in a deep-dive in our next edition on March 14.
Metaverse:
The prize for most overused term at MWC22 predictably went to ‘metaverse’, which was used, spuriously or meaningfully, by a large percentage of companies. Behind the hype and false assumptions, there are genuinely interesting concepts here, which will affect user experience and services, and will present new challenges for operators in terms of how they fit into the value chain, if at all.
5G Standalone:
Apart from the Chinese operators and T-Mobile USA, few MNOs have started to deploy 5G Standalone, with the 5G core, at any scale, but there will be growth in these projects over the next few years and so 5G SA deployment strategies were a strong theme in Barcelona.
Some, like KDDI of Japan (see below), highlighted what may be an important trend if Open RAN achieves its objectives, tying the two together – in the macro network, a dramatic change of architecture, such as open vRAN, will inevitably be part of a migration to 5G SA.
But SA is important to the 5G business model in a broader way of course, and we expect considerable acceleration of private and industrial small cell 5G networks based on a localized 5G core, or one with the user plane functions distributed from a cloud-based control plane. The options for continuing coexistence with 4G and with 5G Non-Standalone were also much-discussed, with Option 4 gaining ground since MWC 2019 (when it was largely dismissed).
AT&T:
Many operators had interesting demonstrations, trials and breakthroughs, but we picked out AT&T because it ticked so many boxes in terms of the partnerships and technologies that go with a whole new world of mobile networks. Its ground-breaking deal to transfer its Network Cloud and 5G core to Microsoft Azure was announced months ago, but was a topic of discussion throughout MWC, as it sets a precedent that is exciting for some non-greenfield operators, threatening for others.
But also, AT&T announced its own deal with Symphony; a partnership with Intel to develop ‘RAN pooling’ – a dynamic use of distributed unit resources within an Open RAN – and other efforts that are likely to be closely watched by operators round the world. Remembering that AT&T contributed crucial seed code to the original O-RAN specs, to Open Networking Automation Protocol, and to many other telecom-related Linux Foundation projects, it is clear that is wants to disrupt the platforms and supply chain for 5G-era telecoms – even if it may not adopt those raw specs itself, but may continue to try to differentiate its networks with semi-customized and cutting edge technologies.