Everybody
knows that in case of national emergencies, wars or similar, where human
life and human rights are under threat, any Government need to secure
certain strategic industries, amongst several others: Energy and Telecom;
yes, Telecom, for those have worked in this since equipment became digital, we
have always know that we work in a sensitive and strategic industry that has been, until recently often neglected by governments and even some mobile
operators.
Since
most of us have witnessed, some way or another the roll out of all
different mobile technologies from 2G, 3G, 3.5G, 4G, 4.5G . If I have to choose
to which scenario 5G is the most similar (and most of the people would agree),
I would say it is 3G, due to the technology and algorithms implemented to make it
work, this was a real game changer and at that time made many people in Technology
and Telecom industry have many expectations of new services and monetization
paths. The Roll out of 5G technology in 2019 is very similar to that one in the
past (i.e.1999) and all of the sudden people will be realizing and reaping of
its benefits.
HOWEVER,
current business environment and widespread technology availability make it a
lot more complex for 5G to deliver the real benefits as 3G did. The scenario
between 1999 and 2019 is different, and all these are the outcome of the Globalized
world that was built during this period of time:
1.
We now live in a world of big corporations in a
globalized-interconnected business world driven by a geo-politics agendas. More
than ever, the success of a technology as 5G will depend not only on deploying
this on ¨one End but on the another One¨ will be crucial. Example: Company X in
Europe using 5G for real time supply chain data analytics will require that
connection from their automation machines deployed in South Asia also be connected
with 5G.
2.
“General availability to access resources and collaboration”
to develop complex technology (either to enable 5G itself or enabled by 5G); nowadays
only with a combination of guts, good technical skills and access to founding, and
some luck up to certain level, is all what is is required for a bunch of
friends to create a software and system to de disruptive instantly and worldwide.
For Example see all opensource initiatives that have exploded in the las 20 years
and every month there is at least new one.
3.
Convergence and availability to implement technology that we
always thought would be cool to implement for several reasons, since most of it
has been around for several years at least in a very rudimentary wat but now it
is available and not only possible to implement but real benefits can be reaped
off; such a technologies can work across/transversal industries: Machine
Learning, Virtual And Augmented Reality, IoT Interfaces and Systems, Cloud,
OpenSource software, Open Architectures.
Therefore, due to at least three ‘external’
factors a new approach to roll out 5G needs to be taken, and it has to do with the
active involvement of all different actors in the Telecom Value Chain, otherwise
if we leave this up to “Market” to lead the way (as in the past since 1999), it
would take again many years to start reaping the benefits, not only in the business
aspect but also in social-economic aspects for population. This time is also about
accelerating broad adoption of this technology and having human beings benefit
from it soon. (will continue this description in another post)
a A different approach needs to be taken this time for 5G tech to be rolled out, there must be an audit at two stages in the Telecom Value Chain at each Local Market through each of the national Telecom bodies as : BNA, FCC, OfCOM, IFT, CNM,etc.
Such an audits would involve in the field/local, getting a certification at the manufacturing floor and once the equipment is in operation to renew such a certification based on security updates.
These suggestions are given on the following initial premises, in other words, the rules of the new 5G poker game should be or be re-inforced as follows:
- National Telecom Regulators remain independent of Governments policies and affairs and have a set of Objectives that are long term nationwide always behalf of the best interest of end consumers, both individual and enterprises.
- 5G equipment vendors must compete on a fair and free market where each CSP/DSP can opt to what their consider the best technology for their business needs.
- Patents should remain as part of those who created and all those legal and common procedures should remain in place and be valid unless some agreement for business purposes is achieved between parties involved, as it is today.
- Local labour market must be strengthen by providing more local jobs. Good jobs and permanent jobs at least aligned to the whole lifecycle of 5G.
- The rules must be driven by tackling security concern and privacy for customers, protecting data and re-enforcing GDPR on daily or by the hour-basis.
- National Telecom Regulators must take a most active role, not only watchdog but influencing 5G equipment built and deployed in its market.
One way of enforcing
these rules could be as follows, considering core/radio 5G equipment (not necessarily
handsets) would be:
All 5G Equipment must
be manufactured, at least at 80% on the market/country where is going to be
roll out. These should secure not only jobs but reduce costs for implementation
on the field.
Security cleared
certified equipment to be used in the market, this certification should have
validity for 2 years and procedures should be executed remotely and random
security checks of the equipment remotely.
Is not too late to
implement measures such a rules .., that
comply with both security and fair competition enables, is not too late because
is very likely that 5G technology already deployed might not be totally
compliant, in the first , so all that will have to be recalled or change
equipment anyways, it always happens that first modules are not 100% , so there
is time.
Governments should
stop being irresponsible about this industry and act according to new times,
and avoid to what happened in 1999 to the US Bell Labs and Lucent Technologies
where they should have never allowed such a kind of irresponsibility at the
board and upper-upper management in a critical company as these ones, (so there
are consequences that can be seen now in 2019).
in a scenario where some
regulation must exist, gvt driven ,
manufacture local, test, govt regulated only through testing, cerfitifcation at
local manufacturing plants.
Disclaimer: don’t hold
in any stake in companies either vendor or mobile operators; this post is only
as a matter of creating a positive discussion from different fronts, tried to
be the most objective possible but it
doesn’t mean this post is error free.
