Oracle exec: ‘The 5G standalone core network was always the main act in this show’
Andrew De La Torre, group vice president of technology at Oracle Communications, expressed some disappointment that the industry hasn’t moved faster on 5G Standalone (SA), mostly because doing so is the only way to realize the full potential of 5G technology. Below, De La Torre expands on this perspective and provides a glimpse into where the telecom industry stands with 5G SA and where it’s heading.
Is there anything about the current state or progress of 5G that has surprised you?
One aspect that has stood out to me in the 5G ecosystem has been the movements of the regulators on the spectrum front. However, progress wise, 5G is exactly where I thought it would be, with the carriers focusing on radio investments first to deliver the coverage. This step is always a pre-requisite to drive the device ecosystem and adoption, and it is always the way the industry has built momentum for any new cellular generation, particularly in the consumer space.
However, from the outset, the vision for 5G was always to serve two markets — the first being the well-established carrier consumer market and second, and perhaps more significantly, as the enabling technology for the next wave of enterprise industrial IoT. This is where the spectrum topic comes in because a critical part of realizing this vision will depend on private networks. The telecom industry has typically ensured that licensed spectrum and the technologies that run over it are the preserve of carriers. Regulators have also ensured that they have maximized their monetization opportunities from those spectrum assets.
This time, however, we have seen a more thoughtful strategy from regulators in major countries such as Germany, U.K., France, Japan, Singapore, Australia and the U.S. Spectrum has been reserved, with relatively low barriers to entry, for private network applications in frequency bands clearly targeted to support 5G adoption. I believe this demonstrates a strong understanding of the opportunity for broader 5G adoption to be a key driver for economic growth. It is also a sign that our industry is serious about moving beyond the pure consumer world.
A big part of serving that second market — the enterprise — is getting to 5G Standalone, right? Why is that? What benefits or opportunities will the transition to 5G SA deliver?
For me, the 5G standalone core network was always the main act in this show. 5G new radio, as a technology, did not offer a significant improvement in fundamental performance versus 4G/LTE — on a like for like spectrum comparison — because spectral efficiency has already reached close to its theoretical limits. That’s not to say the sheer speed/capacity and latency improvements aren’t key components of 5G’s capabilities, but its success will be determined by the new services 5G delivers — and perhaps more importantly, the speed at which those services can be delivered.
The new standalone, service-based architecture — along with its adoption of cloud native and non-cellular specific protocols such as HTTP2 — are critical to 5G being able to support the complex and large numbers of new services that the enterprise industrial IoT ecosystem will demand. Delivering these with speed will also be essential, as the enterprise will not wait for carriers to deliver these capabilities when they decide to adopt them.
If 5G is to succeed as a technology, it will take our industry beyond consumer voice and broadband, our industry will also need to respond to enterprise market’s needs quickly. The technology choices that underpin the 5G Standalone core network are fundamental to carriers being able to respond to these needs and are the capabilities that really set 5G apart from previous cellular technologies.
OK, but how are U.S. carriers doing in their transition to SA 5G? What about the rest of the world?
I have observed the same adoption patterns globally for 5G — be that for new radio or standalone core network — that we have seen previously in the industry. A few major Asian economies play the role of early adopters, typically with versions of the technology that are not yet finalized and have large parts of localized IP filling the gaps as it were. Once the 5G standards reached a level of true maturity, the U.S. carriers are typically the first to move and have been leading the charge at a global level in this respect. Europe is playing the role of fast follower with carriers in that market now starting to establish their standalone deployment plans and award contracts. The rest of the world continues to lag somewhat, although some engagements with our customers in other regions are starting to appear.
Some have said they expected SA to be farther along at this point. Do you agree? Why or why not?
Given what I said earlier about the way our industry typically adopts new generations of cellular technology and the regional adoption patterns, I cannot say I expected us to be further along in SA at this stage. The approach has been very much in line with how we have always adopted new generations of cellular technology.
However, that does not mean I am not disappointed the industry hasn’t moved faster. The Standalone core network is the real service engine of 5G and has always been the key component of what realizes the full potential of 5G technology. What our industry failed to anticipate is that, just like the device ecosystem needed radio — for coverage — investment to stimulate it, the services ecosystem needed standalone deployments for the very same reason. By phasing the investment focus in this way, we have artificially delayed the stimulus for innovation in the services space. And, without these new services, 5G will never make that jump from a technology that is just about consumer voice and broadband to one that includes the enterprise market.
Is there any global carrier you think is a standout when it comes to their SA progress?
Oracle works with many of the leading global carriers on their SA programs, and it’s hard to claim any one of them is better or worse than their peers in terms of progress because they have all started from very different places. A carrier’s existing infrastructure environments, skillsets and business practices, and market position all mean they have taken different approaches to their 5G adoption.
However, I will say there is clearly one carrier that stands out in the way they have chosen to deploy their 5G network, and that is DISH in the U.S. Having the benefit of building a greenfield 5G network has liberated them from a lot of the legacy constraints other carriers face, and they have taken full advantage. Their decision to deploy their network in the public cloud, and place an unrelenting focus on the cloud native capabilities of their 5G solutions (as much as the actual 5G features themselves), has demonstrated a really visionary approach to building a communications network. Oracle has been fortunate enough to be a major provider to DISH on their journey so far, which I believe will prove to be the future template for how to build carrier networks.
What can you share with me about Oracle’s approach to supporting the shift to SA?
Oracle has adopted a very specific strategy on 5G, which is centered around providing best- in-class industry leading capabilities from our 5G network functions and fully realizing the power of cloud native.
We decided from the very outset to build our 5G solutions cloud native from the ground up — with no repurposed legacy code — because we firmly believed that the cloud native capabilities of our products are a critical part of what carriers will need. At a 5G network level, we focused on then building only the components that we felt we could excel at, and perhaps more importantly, represented the most critical components of a carrier’s 5G network. As a result, we zeroed in on the control plane of the standalone core network.
Beyond that, we also realized that many of our customers would need support in their journey to a new cloud native technology like 5G. This represents a massive shift in the skills and business practices that carriers have, and it is not an easy transformation to embark on. This is where we believe Oracle is unique as a communications equipment provider because not only can we provide industry leading 5G products, but we also bring to our customers all the knowledge and experience of a hyperscale cloud provider. Additional offerings like those from our consulting services organization can help fill the knowledge gaps that carriers have as they move into this new cloud world, enabling them to deploy, upskill and move to the monetization phase at an accelerated rate.
Anything else you’d like to add about SA 5G or the global status of 5G more broadly? Trends? Insights?
Our observations from customer engagements tell us the next two-to-five years will be the point where 5G standalone deployments finally reach global critical mass. This will be an important milestone in stimulating the service industry to innovate over 5G. Over this period, I predict two things:
First, the sheer diversity and scale of the 5G opportunity for industrial applications will start to become apparent. Carriers will shift their focus from simply deploying 5G as a technology to transforming their entire businesses and operating models. The need to be highly agile, adopt fail-fast approaches, open the cellular world to a vast services ecosystem, and fully leverage the cloud not just in 5G but in their IT domain will become major imperatives.
Second, there will be an increasing realization that the future of 5G will lie in this technology being an underlying enabler for vertical industrial applications. It will also be more apparent that these vertical capabilities will need to be increasingly offered as integrated end-to-end solutions to remove complexity and cost for the end users. Carriers will need to embrace new partner ecosystems with vertical application providers like Oracle and deploy new technology and commercial models that can embed their network capabilities into these integrated offerings
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