BT's Howard Watson: Eyeing the 'prize' of a 5G converged core

AMSTERDAM – Broadband World Forum – Howard Watson, CTIO of BT Group, shares the service provider's plans around deploying XGS-PON and GPON, and the company's timeline for phasing out use of Huawei equipment.

In addition, Watson explains the benefits of pursuing a 5G converged core. "It's a really important opportunity for us. The core networks for mobile and fixed – if you're an operator independently doing the two separately, they actually look quite different … we think there's a real opportunity to converge those and the prize is quite big." Watson explains that converging these networks would be more cost-efficient and simplify customer deployments.

— Iain Morris, International Editor, Light Reading