Network operators are taking more control over the digital transformation process as reliance on traditional vendors weakens.

May 17, 2018

6 Min Read
Large & In Charge: Operators Take Control

AUSTIN -- Big Communications Event -- Service providers are taking matters more into their own hands to transform their networks faster than some of their traditional vendors seem able to manage. In two separate panels here this week, service providers said they are turning to startup companies, developing things in house and using open source in new ways, all to innovate faster and with less complexity.

"Operators are increasingly taking their fate in their hands, they are not going to wait for something to be available on the market, especially now when a lot of operators are creating their own software tools," said Mirko Voltolini, head of network on demand for Colt Technology Services Group Ltd , during a keynote panel on "Why vendors won't get paid per box anymore." Today's hardware, once disaggregated from software, is also becoming available directly from new sources, he added.

Figure 1: Keynote panel, Why Vendors Won't Get Paid Per Box Anymore, included (L to R) Moderator Ray Le Maistre of Light Reading, David Amzallag, Charlie Ashton, Mike Frane and Mirko Voltolini. Keynote panel, Why Vendors Won’t Get Paid Per Box Anymore, included (L to R) Moderator Ray Le Maistre of Light Reading, David Amzallag, Charlie Ashton, Mike Frane and Mirko Voltolini.

Windstream Communications Inc. (Nasdaq: WIN)'s vice president of product management, Mike Frane, said on the same panel that his company is addressing vendor deficiencies by spinning up internal DevOps teams.

"Looking long term, we have a voice platform that we developed ourselves and the economics on that are great," Frane said. "We couldn't get vendors to deliver a similar product to us. We are continuing to look to innovate in providing services to our customers."

The lone vendor on that panel, Charlie Ashton, director of business development at Wind River Systems Inc. , said he's seen a major shift in attitudes among operators, who at one time had little interest in the software his company has traditionally licensed to telecom equipment manufacturers.

"Now operators are getting much more involved in the technology decisions, and, in many cases, they are driving the technology decisions that are adopted," he commented.

What open source adds
Network operators increasingly are also looking to other sources such as open source groups for some of what they need and aren't getting in a fast-enough timeframe from vendors. Speaking on a panel that addressed the conversion of central offices to data centers, BCE Inc. (Bell Canada) (NYSE/Toronto: BCE)'s Troy Saulnier, head of strategy and architecture network transformation, says open source represents a way for network operators to offload some of the long-term challenges of maintaining software to the bigger community.

"Telcos have been writing code for quite a while, developing their own tools and OSSs," he said. "One of the lightbulb moments lately is that when you do that stuff and move to open source, you still bear the responsibility of maintaining it, but now you share that. So the answer is not writing your own code, and keeping it secret, unless you are planning on monetizing it. If it's a commodity, you should upstream it."

Figure 2: Bill Walker (left) and Troy Saulnier on a breakout panel, Converting COs to Data Centers. Bill Walker (left) and Troy Saulnier on a breakout panel, Converting COs to Data Centers.

Network operators can -- and should -- drive open source to address their problems, even if they don't have the financial resources to join groups as board members or the technology resources to contribute code, said Jeff Finkelstein, executive director of advanced technologies at Cox Communications Inc. , on the same panel.

"We can contribute as operators by being present in the room, you don't have to be a code jockey," he said. "Being there and keeping the process on track solving real business problems, past present and future, brings a real value, too."

Next page: Rolling your own

Rolling your own
Traditionally, telecom network operators have chosen to consume open source code through vendor distributions, which hold the promise of ongoing support and maintenance, but even that may be changing. Bill Walker, senior director of strategy advancement at CenturyLink Inc. (NYSE: CTL), admitted on the central-office-to-data center panel that the economics have shifted in the last 18 months to where his organization is now taking a "roll-your-own" approach to a small percentage of open source, typically what he considers mature commodity things -- such as Linux -- but also the "bleeding edge" stuff where it's important for CenturyLink to engage deeper to direct the activity.

That's the choice Bell Canada made in adopting the Open Network Automation Platform (ONAP) , Saulnier said. It's not unsupported, he hastened to add, but it does require greater due diligence internally to adopt an open source platform ahead of its commercialization. (See Bell Canada Pioneers Production ONAP.)

Many of the behavioral changes by network operators are born out of frustration, said David Amzallag, former head of virtualization at Vodafone Group plc (NYSE: VOD) and now a consultant to industry start-ups, on the keynote panel. When Vodafone began its virtualization transformation, one of its first steps was to reshape its procurement operation, he explained, initiating an effort to redefine vendor relationships and the way the operator collaborated with its vendors. This was necessary because no single vendor could provide everything Vodafone needed, he added, making it unlikely that a single vendor or even dual-vendor ecosystem would work.

"We ran several use cases that are now commercially deployed under new business models," Amzallag said. "It took us several years -- it wasn't easy. We started to work with a lot of startups."

Those startups are now commercially deployed in Vodafone's network under new business models which are different from the business relationships with the operator's long-trusted vendors, he said. When Vodafone went looking for its first network orchestrator -- a totally new thing for its network -- it initially asked the eight potential vendors for their pricing models, and got eight very different ideas, he added.

"The [ecosystem] was so immature, so we decided to be the first responsible adult in the room," Amzallag said. Vodafone created what he said was a simplified pricing model, that wasn't intended to lower prices so much as reduce complexity. One traditional vendor promptly dropped out of the procurement process rather than attempt the change.

Figure 3: David Amzallag makes his point. David Amzallag makes his point.

Other vendors are beginning to respond to the need for changes in the way things are priced, Frane said, but much of that change is being driven by pressure from startups and other technology companies willing to move faster, he said.

Traditional vendors "are a bit slower, but they do know they need to change their pricing models," Frane commented.

Of course, network operators are not the only ones feeling frustration in this time of flux. Wind River's Ashton pointed out that vendors are having to try to make sense of what network operators want and need when they sometimes can't spell it out clearly in a basic RFI. And as the Wednesday morning keynote discussion showed, while everyone seems to agree the new pricing/consumption/collaboration models are needed, it's not yet clear what those will be.

— Carol Wilson, Editor-at-Large, Light Reading

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