Building on its 120-year history of leveraging technology to drive transformation across industries, NEC is leading the Open Ran revolution and exploring ways to bring OpenRAN to businesses. According to NEC’s Rahul Chandra, this is an exciting time because creating open interfaces and moving away from proprietary systems gives industries tools to accelerate. NEC has been a leader in supporting technology trends and open networks. It was the first vendor to bring an OpenFlow-based controller and the first virtual PC to market. With the acquisition of Blue Danube, it has access to the company’s proprietary technology. Discover how NEC is creating opportunities for digital acceleration through private 5G so companies have access to emerging technologies that can transform the way they do business, from the use of AI in cancer treatment to giving first responders almost immediate access to information about emergencies routed to them.
Alejandro Pinero:
Well hello, everyone. Welcome to another Fierce Wireless digital interview. My name is Alejandro Pinero and today I'm excited to be joined by Rahul Chandra. Rahul is the vice president for global 5G business development at NEC, but also newly appointed CEO at Blue Danube Systems. Rahul, thanks for joining us. Great to speak with you today.
Rahul Chandra:
Thank you so much, Alejandro. I appreciate the opportunity and look forward to the conversation.
Alejandro Pinero:
Absolutely. Of course, we're going to really get into the depth of the topic around open approach and infrastructure. But before we get started now for those listening to the introduction, there's Blue Danube Systems, there's NEC. Can you tell us a little bit about NEC, which I think people will be very familiar with, but also about Blue Danube?
Rahul Chandra:
Certainly. NEC is an end-to-end supplier of Open RAN systems and technologies, so that includes RAN systems, it includes systems integration capability, and it includes software for automation. NEC is 120 year young startup in this space, so to speak. We've had a philosophy of supporting trends in open networking all throughout this journey. When software-defined networking first came around back in the 2008 timeframe, NEC was the first vendor to come out with an open flow based controller. We followed that up with the world's first virtual EPC when network function virtualization NFV came around and now we've followed that up in Open RAN with the world's first commercially deployed massive MIMO radio.
Rahul Chandra:
There's a common theme there around NEC sort of leveraging technology to improve innovation, accelerate innovation, and drive transformation across multiple industries. We're not doing this just in the carrier market, but we are also applying our technologies in other markets. For example, medical care and using AIML for cancer detection. We've got a number of trials around private 5G which have the ability to transform different industries and this is where Blue Danube Systems also comes into play. NEC acquired Blue Danube Systems because it has some proprietary technology around beam forming that has been patented. That would provide additional value to our customers as we define and develop Open RAN enabled radios and solutions. This is something that would help accelerate and is accelerating NEC's product portfolio and product innovation.
Alejandro Pinero:
Great, and you mentioned all these industry firsts, going back a few years. Obviously, it's all about innovation. When we think about specifically Open RAN, how will Open RAN help drive that innovation and evolution of networks?
Rahul Chandra:
It's a great question. The way we look at it, Open RAN is the one key that potentially unlocks a hundred doors when it comes to networking. The reason we believe in that is because we've seen this in other industries where the moment you start to create open interfaces, the moment you start to move away from proprietary technologies and proprietary concentrated industry structures, that's where innovation starts to really accelerate. We've seen this in the networking industry, in the telecom industry back when SDN, Software Defined Networking first came in back in 2008, NEC was one of the first vendors in the market to come out with an SDN based OpenFlow controller. We followed that up with the world's first virtual EPC when network function virtualization, NFV came around. It's really a philosophy that NEC has around supporting open networks.
Rahul Chandra:
We're doing now the same with Open RAN. If you think about what's happened in the last even 20 years, think about how much venture capital money has gone into creating radio companies, hardly any. The reason for that is that it was very difficult to break into these proprietary architectures. But now with Open RAN you see a number of different companies coming in, venture capital starting to flow in. We saw some of the M&A activity with Altiostar being acquired at some say a billion dollar plus valuation by Rakuten.
Rahul Chandra:
You're starting to see that already that the innovation is accelerating and people talk about the fact that, well right now it's just plumbing. How much cheaper is it going to be versus legacy? But to us that's really not the key point here. The point is what is it going to enable? What it's going to enable is the level of automation, the level of intelligence, the level of innovation because 5G is unlike any other G before that. It's really something that would transform and can transform multiple industry verticals and economies at large. We saw some announcements coming out of India for example, where they're looking to really provide broadband connectivity to 1.3 billion people. Imagine what that would do to the GDP of India. There's some very exciting things that can be enabled through Open RAN.
Alejandro Pinero:
Absolutely. I love hearing what some of this enables because it drives home to the point about digital transformation. Obviously, Open RAN a key component of that transformation across verticals and industries.
Rahul Chandra:
Absolutely, and we're already working on and trialing several what we call private 5G deployments and trials across multiple industries. In Japan, we're trialing out safer cities. We're working with heavy industry and construction equipment companies to try out autonomous vehicles where for situations like mining that could be risky for humans, now you have a way of sending autonomous heavy machinery to be able to do some of that work. One of my favorite use cases is around reforestation. Think about the fact that if you now had an autonomous vehicle 24/7 just planting trees, what would that do to decarbonize the atmosphere and the world? There's some very exciting opportunities that we're working on and that 5G would enable.
Alejandro Pinero:
That's great. Every time I speak to someone about 5G, there's some great new use case I haven't heard from it. I love that one. Rahul, getting back to Open RAN specifically here, we're seeing more and more trials, deployments, more specific timelines and timeframes to see those deployments. What are some of the things that you guys are doing to facilitate and help drive more Open RAN deployments at scale?
Rahul Chandra:
I would say we're working on four different vectors to do this. The first one is we need a broader product portfolio that can be deployed by various customers around the world. Solving the RAN problem, it's not a trivial problem to solve. You've got multiple bands in terms of spectrum, you've got multiple configurations of radios that have been deployed. One of the things that customers want us to do is accelerate the product portfolio that is Open RAN compliant. We're doing a lot of investment in RU development and that was one of the big reasons why NEC acquired Blue Danube Systems, was to be able to accelerate that, so that's number one.
Rahul Chandra:
Number two is as network architecture has become disaggregated, somebody still has to put it together and carriers have been very clear with us to say, "Look, we need somebody like NEC that has the scale, that has the expertise, that has the history, and frankly, somebody that we trust to help us put it all together." We are investing very heavily in systems integration capabilities. We have a Center of Excellence that is based out of the UK, but supported globally that looks into architecting and integrating all these different components of Open RAN. We recently acquired Aspire Technologies out of Ireland to again accelerate our SI capability around the world, so that's number two.
Rahul Chandra:
Number three is, as I mentioned before because it's about innovation and opening up the architecture, we're investing very heavily in the ecosystem. We're working with a number of partners around testing various interfaces, around testing new technologies, around AI and automation, and apps on top of this architecture. That's another key vector that we're focusing on.
Rahul Chandra:
Last but not the least, it's contributing to the industry at large by supporting many of the industry standards bodies, actively contributing to them. We are a very active and founding member of Open RAN Alliance. We're working very closely with TIP, ORPC, which is a policy body for Open RAN in the US and globally. Those are the four areas that we're focused on and working on.
Alejandro Pinero:
Great, and this is probably related to some of the points you've made thus far, but we're talking about an open ecosystem. You've mentioned just before, this gives the opportunity to bring a wider ecosystem into play and there's a lot of new players and capital that's flowing into this space. What sets NEC apart? What are you guys doing differently?
Rahul Chandra:
What we hear from customers is the number one thing that sets us apart is they trust the NEC name. They trust the NEC name because of our long history, our history of innovating, our history of delivering on what we have committed. I think that's really the number one thing. But obviously underlying all of that is all of the work that's going in the background and the investments that I just talked about.
Rahul Chandra:
You're starting to see articles online and in the media where are people already calling for the demise of Open RAN. We haven't even gotten started. I mean, if you think about how long any new technology adoption takes in the telecom world, we're actually much faster in Open RAN than in any of the other technologies that have been brought about in the telecom industry. We're just getting started and I think maybe it's a point where it's really starting to create some ripples in the ecosystem. You are seeing a lot of articles coming around security and whether Open RAN is really ready. If you really dig down into it, there was an article earlier and they talked about security implications and when you read through it was actually around cloud and Cloud RAN, not so much Open RAN and the Open fronthaul interface.
Rahul Chandra:
I think the legacy vendors are starting to take notice. They're starting to see that they cannot just brush this aside. We're certainly seeing a lot more activity online. I think what NEC is doing is really proving that Open RAN is viable. It is not only viable, it actually delivers results. We've done that in Rakuten where we deployed massive MIMO radios in the C-band at scale in an urban environment. We just announced another win, in fact today, with Orange and Mavenir, which is one of our partners. Yesterday, we got an award from the Australian government to actually help with Open RAN deployment in the country. Almost every week now there is a new win and a new announcement that comes out. Clearly, that's what customers are seeing. They're seeing our wins in the market, they're seeing what we are doing in the market in terms of acquisitions and asset development, and I think that's what sets NEC apart.
Alejandro Pinero:
Well, in closing then Rahul, as we see more and more of those news coming out about Open RAN wins and deployments, can you leave us with some thoughts on perhaps what are some of those globally applicable takeaways from those early deployments? What can we tell those folks that are looking at it now to avoid some common pitfalls?
Rahul Chandra:
What I would say is, again, Open RAN is viable. It is delivering results. Obviously, not everything has been solved, but it's a journey. It's not something that you just turn on a switch. I think there is more that even carriers can do to accelerate the adoption of Open RAN globally. We're seeing a lot of traction in Europe, for example, and what carriers there have committed to is to say, "Look, we're going to have 20 or 30% of our network be Open RAN in the next three to five or seven years."
Rahul Chandra:
I think if that's an approach that other large tier-one carriers take around the world, that just helps accelerate the ecosystem because it's about scale. I think that's something that that can be done. Certainly, we're working with our partners in the ecosystem to develop the portfolio to be able to integrate that. I think the cloud hyperscale vendors are a key enabler of the Open RAN ecosystem because a lot of this is cloud-enabled and we're deploying a lot of these workloads in the cloud. I think there's certainly a lot of innovation happening. It will accelerate and I think in the next year to two years we'll certainly see that happen much more actively and aggressively around the world.
Alejandro Pinero:
Great, Rahul. As that progresses, I look forward to catching up with you again and seeing where we are and to hear more about all the great things going on over there at NEC and now at Blue Danube as part of NEC, as well. Thank you so much, Rahul, for your time. Much appreciate it, it's been really fascinating to hear your thoughts.
Rahul Chandra:
Thank you so much, Alejandro, appreciate it as well.
Alejandro Pinero:
Wonderful, and to all those of you watching, thanks for joining us and as always, stay tuned here at Fierce Wireless for some great content coming your way. Take care.