Unlocking telco service provider success by reducing complexity

This year at MWC Barcelona, Red Hatters from across the globe had the privilege to sit down and connect with our ecosystem. Each time we’re able to do this, we learn so much from delving deeper to better understand and help solve the unique challenges facing telecommunications providers. Our commitment to open source principles, combined with our expertise in 5G automation, hybrid cloud, artificial intelligence (AI) and edge computing, makes us the ideal platform partner for telcos looking to stay ahead in an ever-changing industry. Today I want to talk to you about pre-integrated solutions, AI operations and Red Hat's open RAN approach.

The power of pre-integrated multi-vendor solutions

Complexity. It’s one of the biggest challenges organizations face when looking to modernize their networks, operations and infrastructure. Pre-integrated multi-vendor solutions can offer a beacon of efficiency. Red Hat helps telco service providers achieve their 5G business and operational strategies with reduced complexity through a unified cloud-native application platform that spans their entire network from core to edge.

If we travel back in time to the early days of OpenStack, it seemed like such a big and complex step to make. But like we did with OpenStack, we’re now making complexity easier to deal with by packaging these 5G automation, hybrid cloud, AI and edge technologies up with our ecosystem. This method of pre-integrating and validating multi-vendor solutions helps simplify modernization for telco service providers to get new services to market quickly. Simplifying complexity also drives network modernization, which is replicable and scalable with lifecycle management and less risk. For example, with Ericsson we’ve integrated Ericsson Cloud RAN with Red Hat OpenShift for more flexibility in choosing a cloud platform. Additionally, last year we announced a strategic partnership to deliver Nokia's core network applications together with Red Hat's industry-leading cloud infrastructure platforms. Since then, we’ve been busy working with several joint customers, including Perfectum, to pair the full power of open source platforms with Nokia’s core network applications, providing customers with even greater choice and flexibility. Additionally, we have a growing number of new pre-integrated and validated cloud-native network functions (CNFs) focused on 5G core and other related business applications available in our catalog.

The strategic partnership between Red Hat and Nokia allows telco service providers to work with an open source ecosystem to capitalize on 5G opportunities faster and with less risk to enhance innovation, attract customers and create differentiated value. This means our customers will benefit from:

• An easier path to move to a multi-vendor, open hybrid platform; 
• Innovative software features running on Red Hat OpenShift for 5G, AI and edge workloads;
• Faster time-to-value because it’s easier to deploy and migrate workloads;
• A more consistent operational experience and platform from core to edge, helping to drive new revenue streams and better monetize the network.

The industry is undergoing a significant shift, driven by new technologies. However, you cannot be agile enough to deploy edge solutions unless your network is cloud-native and fully automated. Red Hat has collaborated with organizations like KDDI, Telenor, Turkcell and many more to help accelerate cloud-native network deployments with multi-vendor environments. By working with Red Hat, KDDI is able to optimize their new open standards-based platform to accelerate 5G and edge workloads across any network landscape by collaborating through a diverse partner ecosystem to drive innovation and rapid deployment for new services. Now, KDDI will be able to better work with ecosystem partners to advance open cloud-native innovations and unlock new and emerging technologies to fuel next-generation 5G services.

By integrating diverse technologies more seamlessly, these solutions can empower telcos to navigate the complexities of 5G with greater agility and confidence, unlocking new possibilities for network innovation and service delivery.

Operationalizing AI is crucial

5G deployments, let alone what’s after 5G, are not straightforward or easy; adding AI into operations can help telco service providers unlock greater insights, efficiencies and resilience in managing their networks, even in the face of these challenges. As telco service providers embark on the journey towards cloud-native 5G networks, operationalizing AI with automation is crucial. Complexity is inherent in modern network infrastructures and not going away, so AI-driven automation is another fundamental component for telco service providers with enhanced efficiency, reliability and agility in their operations. Use cases such as predictive network performance  helps telco service providers anticipate and preemptively address potential service degradation, optimizing network performance and user experience. Anomaly detection and auto-remediation functionalities offer proactive solutions to swiftly identify and mitigate issues, increasing network reliability and dependability.

By embracing AI-driven automation, telco service providers can more effectively navigate the complexities of modern networks while unlocking new levels of innovation and service excellence. An example of what this looks like in motion can be seen in our work with Cisco and Intel where we’ve worked together to integrate and simplify operationalizing AI with new validated designs and automation platforms for common AI models.  

Helping telco service providers with open RAN

Red Hat's collaboration with industry leaders helps redefine the landscape of open RAN deployments, empowering telco service providers with unparalleled choice, flexibility and reliability. These collaborations show that providers can architect and deploy open RAN solutions to deliver high performance 5G services - in effect, we are meeting you where you are.

Within the anyRAN framework, Red Hat and Nokia work in a collaborative mode to provide pre-integrated and tested solutions for Cloud RAN customers. We have integrated Red Hat OpenShift in Nokia’s Cloud RAN reference design, supporting a choice of diverse general-purpose hardware platform.

Our customers will benefit from: 

• Modular and scalable transitions to hybrid platforms
• Seamless management of workloads and applications across the CaaS layer
• Flexible enterprise on-premises and centralized Cloud RAN deployments
• Zero-touch operations and lifecycle management with AI-based automation

Additionally, Red Hat and Mavenir announced that together we are in an advanced commercial phase of an open RAN network deployment for Vodafone Idea Limited (Vi). Mavenir and Red Hat continue to work with customers and partners to offer one of the strongest open RAN solutions available today, powered by Red Hat OpenShift.

Through these collaborative efforts, Red Hat and its partners are driving innovation in open RAN, fostering greater interoperability, and accelerating the adoption of open, vendor-neutral solutions in the telecommunications industry. This collaboration not only expands the ecosystem of open RAN offerings but also empowers telco service providers to deliver cloud-native 5G networks with confidence and efficiency.

In closing, we are excited about all the new opportunities to work on with our customers and partners. By acting now, telco service providers can avoid a protraction of 5G ROI, spiraling operational costs, a massive skills gap and more. Hope to speak to you soon about how to help you unleash your opportunities.