A blog for our enterprise customers.
For those of us in the technology industry, we all know that digital transformation has increased business agility and automation for more than a few decades. I’ve watched technologies like virtualization and cloud make incredible improvements in nearly every industry. Remote medicine, autonomous vehicles, intelligent manufacturing, smart cities, and robotics…and the use cases don’t stop there. At VMware, we have an entire portfolio of customer stories which illustrate the impact of how technology has enabled enterprises around the world to do more business, better.
All that said, there is one industry in particular, that is amidst the digital disruption, who not only will be able to do more business, better but will also help all enterprises amplify the value of their digital transformations. That industry – telecommunications.
For decades communications service providers (CSPs) have been adding capabilities by layering functionality on monolithic systems. From 2G, 3G, and 4G, mobile service providers have been providing new connectivity capabilities to enable new services for enterprises and customers. With 5G, they’re revisiting their models and preparing to deliver more.
Their networks are complex – more complex than any other kind of network on Earth. Their digital transformation journey has turned them into budding transformation experts. They’re not only changing the way to build, and operate their networks, they’re changing the way they interact with their enterprise customers as well. A trusted advisor, they’re co-innovating with enterprises, advising on transformation practices, and enabling operational changes with new services they’ve never been able to provide in the past.
To move beyond connectivity-partner, to technology-partner, CSPs have changed their network architectures and operations to be able to respond to the market more quickly. VMware’s telco cloud has brought agility to the network and enabled multi-cloud environments which unify operations from the core to the edge. The next stop on that journey for them is the Radio Access Network (RAN).
For wireless communications service providers, the RAN is the most complex, most expensive portion of the network. Representing over 50% of their network operating expenses, today’s RAN is custom-built with very siloed capabilities. CSPs know that supporting enterprises in this digital era means they need to transform the RAN to increase choice and flexibility. But that also means new complexity.
I have a session at our upcoming VMworld (Accelerate Open RAN Deployments with Validated Solutions – EDG1881) that addresses the innovation and disruption happening in the RAN. I’ll be joined by colleagues from Dell Technologies and Mavenir to dive into the ways we are simplifying this complexity and helping service providers with their journey to Open RAN. The O-RAN opportunity offers CSPs an ability to support new and exciting use cases that will power wireless connectivity and access for enterprises around the world.
The entire transformation, core to RAN, ultimately is about allowing the world to work, live and interact differently. CSPs and their enterprise customers are building capabilities that connect, enable and inspire humanity. For me, this is what drives my dedication to this digital transformation – it’s not about technology, it’s about helping people around the world live a fulfilling life. If this topic fuels you in the same way, I recommend your join another session I have at VMworld called Connect Humanity – Broadband for All (Connect Humanity – Broadband for All – IC1924). In the session, co-presented with colleagues from VMware, Facebook and Connect Humanity, we will discuss how economic, industrial telecommunication related policy can propel an open 5G ecosystem and RAN can close the broadband gap, including VMware Telco Cloud solutions and Facebook Connectivity Magma, an advanced 5G-ready, scalable, cloud native solution for MNOs and enterprises that seek to deploy public or private networks.
I hope you will join us at the show so we can work together on what’s next for this transforming world of ours. Be sure to reach out and say “Hi” if you plan to come to my session – I’d love to hear more about how you’re enabling humanity.
