In The Arena by TechArena - Anticipating MWC Trends in AI, 5G, and Network Evolution

Episode Date: February 28, 2025

AI, 5G, and network automation are reshaping telecom. In this episode, Keate Despain discusses anticipated trends at MWC 2025, from edge computing to the road to 6G, and what’s next for network innovation.

Welcome to the Tech Arena, featuring authentic discussions between tech's leading innovators and our host, Allison Klein. Now let's step into the arena. Welcome in the arena. Welcome in the arena. My name is Alison Klein and today we are looking forward to Mobile World Congress and no better to have a guide to take us there than Keith Despain. Welcome to the program, Keith. Thank you. Happy to be here, Alison. Keith, why don't we just start?

This is the first time you've been on the show with an introduction about you and your background in the tech industry and what makes you uniquely qualified to talk about the upcoming World Congress event. Thanks. So take an opportunity to go back in history then. Started in the early 90s, had an opportunity to join a company at the time that was leading at the space of Motorola and be able to spend time in their different training elements, everything from the infrastructure at the silicon level, all the way up to your handsets and cell phones got started in that way of learning the technology right out of the university, well over almost 30 years ago.

And then spent the last 30 years working in different elements of the technology from product marketing to product development, all the way up to eventually having full solutions beyond the semiconductor level at companies like RaidAssist or even on to some interesting applications in the edge side where I was working with some LED technology. And finally, circling back to Intel a second time where I was the leader of the Intel Network Builders Partner Program that eventually has now morphed into the Industrial Solutions Builders. And now you are sitting as a free agent in the networking arena and very exciting time to be going back to Barcelona at Mobile World Congress.

It's a really pivotal time for the industry in a lot of ways. What major trends do you anticipate taking center stage this year within network advancement? I think a lot of the major trends are going to be a little bit boring except for a few. Generative AI and the opportunity that AI brings to the table like through automation or hardening of the cybersecurity and the customer experience are well known and that's going to move forward. But I'm hearing some new things that are coming out. That's what I'm looking forward to. This will be about my 10th time at Mobile World Congress.

So an opportunity to hear, of course, there's got to be a discussion around 6G evangelism. There's going to be discussion around the virtualization of the brand and how that's continuing to move forward. But at the same time, holographic messaging, what an interesting concept. Back to your Star Trek kind of days. Those things are going to be interesting to see where they are. And of course with Apple's announcement of satellite messaging anywhere as a

software upgrade, no changes to your cell phone, no changes to the network. Just being able to create connection and be able to have that happen for the consumer almost as soon as they roll that out on their platform. So I think that is the culmination of the software driven network that everyone's been driving for the last 15 plus years. You touched on a lot of really interesting topics. I want to impact that holographic messaging, but you know, if I look back in the last couple of years of being in Barcelona, it seemed like the network infrastructure community was just focused so much on the network edge

and how to innovate the network edge for 5G advancement. What do you want to see at the show this year signaling industry progress on that front? I think that as we unpack everything I unload, even the last question, we'll be able to think about at the network edge, virtualization of the RAM has really been driven through the last five, seven, eight years from when it first started getting kicked off and that hype cycle is burst, right? It got deployed in some of the major big players and now I'm looking forward to see the second wave that's really picking it up. As the technology platforms become more robust, I think the second wave of individual network telco companies are going to be able to pick it up at a time

that AI offerings are now being also implemented at the same time, the V ran expansion becomes more available to them at a price point that they can afford. As well as the technology hardens and matures and they feel a little bit more confident in upgrading their networks to be able to move to that virtual RAM deployment. The second one that I see is around the ongoing debate of private 5G and now Wi-Fi 7, what's going to happen is people upgrade from Wi-Fi 6 that's been there. And where's private 5G? I think private 5G has a good hold and a value proposition in certain

applications at the edge and understanding where they can bring that value. And the last one is then about automation. Automation in the network really hands off using artificial intelligence to help make that happen. It's not cheap, but it's got to be there specifically at the edge edge because security, cybersecurity of the network has to be run over the telco clouds and also in through their networks. And so I think those are some key ones that we're going to be able to see a really take advantage of product announcements, new changes, and a few

tweaks to them at this coming Mobile World Congress. I want to unpack one of those a little bit. You talked about AIOps and actually integration of automation into the core network. Where do you think providers are in terms of those core capabilities? The comms industry tends to be pretty risk averse. Do you think that now is the time that they're getting ready to actually implement automation within their network functions? I think they have to.

I think they're getting to that point where it's mature. There are platforms out there, it's positioned many of the telecom equipment manufacturers who've been doing it for quite some time now, in terms of offering it, showing off its robustness, showing off its ability to hopefully be self-aware and look at points of where they were automated and find issues in their network and fix them before anything even happens. I think they're getting to the point where they have those truth points and they're getting more comfortable at the operators to say it's moved out of the

labs, it's moved out of the trial period. People are putting it into live networks. Let's give it a go. And Amdocs as a supplier recently announced a great platform that their network AIOps is now available for people to start building upon. And so now as they go from brownfield environments to implementing these kinds of technologies, there are ways through APIs and other integration technologies to be able to bring this quicker to market with that robust platform.

Now let's pivot to edge compute for a second. Obviously those edge networks and all of the core capabilities that are focused on at MWC are critical to connect edge deployments, which are changing with the infusion of AI. What do you expect to see at MWC in terms of progress with edge compute targets? And are there any particular verticals that you're interested in taking a look at? Yeah, I think that certainly on the edge compute side, it's continuing to roll out simplicity of what is the value?

What does it really do, Shuman? And I think that what I'm excited to see obviously is about robotics. What are the robotic machines that are going to be able to do some really cool stuff and let's just be able to see them. I recently was watching and looking at a video of a new robot that actually looks humanoid. It was quite interesting to see, but what do they do for us and how do these machines, whether it's in my enterprise and certainly Amazon has proven robots can help them move devices, products very quickly at the same time, automotive is doing that.

And I think what I really want to be able to see is how that is now moving to, in my own self-interest of seeing a service shop on how I can take a technician and allow them to be an expert almost simultaneously, you know, as soon as they put on a camera that they're able to download and get user instructions or how do they make repairs and replacements to get stuff done quicker and faster and really affect the value exchange that we're supposed to be seeing from Edge computer. How does it really bring it to life? If we can see our telecom partners allow us to help that or our technology

partners who are doing the system integration for many of these enterprises that are adjusting what the consumer or other businesses want. Make it easy, make it valuable, make it to the point where it's monetized in a way that is not going to really affect too bad the capital costs that go along with it. Now I know you're headed to Barcelona to talk to a lot of folks. Are you expecting any major news this year and who are you excited to talk to at the show? With my background in semiconductors, I always liked talking to the industry

in terms of what technology is going on in semiconductors. And so there's been some announcements that are coming out with Intel launching the Xeon 6 platform and it's got some integrated acceleration that goes along for VRAM deployments, as well as some artificial intelligence capabilities that will be accelerated. I think that's one. I think, of course, with what AMD is doing around their Epic platform and integrating

tightly with FPGAs that they now have, that's an interesting one to watch as well. And to see how that will affect the edge, but also the network infrastructure that they're working closely with the telecom equipment providers. And then of course you have always those that are leading with the lower power side of an ARM based solution, whether that's Ampere or somebody else. There's a lot of people who have licensed that core and how it can affect and bring better sustainability, lower power to be able to deliver what we want at that edge and inside of the networks.

That's the semiconductor side. The others that I'm looking for is of course, what's going on with artificial intelligence. I already talked about the Amdocs platform with the network AIOps. Very interesting to see that. But I think Ericsson, Nokia, Samsung, they're all going to have, what are their automation stories using AI capabilities integrated into their solutions? And then of course, the telecoms themselves, how are they moving and

changing from being a network, fast data pipe to a tech co versus a telecom company? And so that means what are they doing with their geo-fencing to be able to allow telco cloud and move that into the market? What are they doing to their consumers to offer them better solutions? We touched a little bit on holographic messaging. What a cool little feature that may happen here in the near short term as they're trying to fill up their 5G pipes and trying to look at where is 6G going to go. These are things that are advanced.

Mobile World Congress to me always brings out what is the art of the future. What is it going to look like? Where are we going? That's amazing. Now, 5G, you mentioned earlier in the interview, I think that most would say that it's been deployed with less than full use of the specification and use cases.

You mentioned private 5G earlier and the question if that's going to take off. Many operators have complained that they haven't been able to recoup their investments from 5G infrastructure. How long do you think we're going to be stuck in this space of a debate? And when do you think 5G will be fully at its implementation? Great question.

I think personally, the debate is over. 5G is implemented, but it's at the big top 20 operators around the world that have been making that investment. And of course they're not happy with how fast they're getting the usage on that. But it's over. And now the second wave, third wave even now is coming along. But as telecom networks and telecom technology always does, it's starting to look at that next shiny rock and that's 6G.

You'd be able to deliver bandwidth that terrible. Now, of course they're going to say, well, 5G never delivered, but someone's going to take the charge and go, yep, we're jumping forward to 6G. So it's a competitive race unless they're in an environment where they have some, as I said before, geo-fencing that allows them to be a little bit protected. But personally, I think that 5G is here and you can say it's not being used, but that then rolls onto you as the person who adopted the technology and now you're looking to monetize it.

What can I do by building vertical data heavy applications? And that's of course the holographics that I talked about before. That's going to chew up a lot of bandwidth, but also making it easy for, let's say you're a retail store and you want to be able to offer advertising real time videos popping up, whether you're jumping on with Meta and their glasses that they're rolling out. What are they doing to really chew up that bandwidth? I think we'll see them over at World Congress more and more vertical solutions that will give them the opportunity to feel like, okay, there is a way to monetize 5G.

That's awesome. Now, let's talk about 6G. This is the future technology. Some people are saying that 6G is going to be the integration point for mass AI. Do you think momentum is continuing with 6G advancement or has momentum stalled? It's an interesting one. The telecom industry seems to move at a beat rate that is fast, but it's not as fast as some of the other technology industries that we watch, but I do think

it's not stalled, it's just in that building consensus. This takes a whole worldwide focus to get the standards in place, get them working across the elements that are there. And that just takes time in my mind to be able to get people to collaborate, change maybe their individual thinking to one that's okay, it's a bigger idea over here or a better idea, a better mousetrap, and they're going to go through that discussion within the standards bodies. Meanwhile, someone's going to jump the gun and ignore the standards bodies and try and get forward before anybody else.

I think all of that is that standard as you move from 4G to 5G to 6G, they have to sort through that. And I think we're going to experience that for the next two or three years, even though I'm over World Congress, I think they're going to be hyping it big time for 6G. Now, I'm really excited to hear what you have to say on this topic, and I'm sure that folks who are listening online are intrigued to learn more as you get to Barcelona next week. Where can folks reach out to you to connect, meet up at Mobile World Congress, or connect online to learn more about what you're seeing there.

For one, you can always reach me through Tech Arena. I think you guys will help open up and if they have interest to learn more, then we can set up those meetings. But also over LinkedIn, you can look up my profile, keep the Spain and you'll be able to find me. I'm not sure with my first name. There's that many out there. There's only a few, but you'll be able to find me. And then, of course, through the Mobile World Congress app that allows networking, reach out through that and I will be available. Awesome.

Thank you so much, Keith. It's great to have you as part of Tech Arena and thank you so much for being on this episode. Appreciate it. Thank you, Allison. Thanks for joining the Tech Arena. Subscribe and engage at our website, thetecharena.net. All content is copyrighted by the Tech Arena.