5G IS HERE! A MOBILE WORLD CONGRESS AMERICAS RECAP

At Mobile World Congress Americas, it was made clear – 5G is here!  The week was full of momentum as Mavenir announced a partnership with Syniverse, the launch of a North American Tier 1 Operator on our NFV CloudRange Platform, and live-demos with industry leaders such as Intel, Amdocs, and Radisys. Read on to discover the key topics discussed, news making headlines, and session highlights from the conference.

Trending Topics

So, what was creating the loudest buzz?  You guessed it – 5G, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Rich Communication Services (RCS). These megatrends, combined, are serving as a catalyst to a new era for our industry – an era of ‘intelligent connectivity,’ per GSMA’s recent blog. This era will usher in an improved industry standard that connects operators with their customers how and when they prefer, creating experiences that are custom-made and have the greatest impact.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) Transformation

Mats Granryd, Director General, GSMA commented in his opening keynote at MWCA 2018 “Intelligent connectivity will have a significant and positive impact on individuals, industry, and society, marking the beginning of a new era defined by highly contextualized and personalized experiences.”

Granryd went on to share, the progress of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in use for virtual agents and chatbots on the web, in apps or on messaging platforms, such as Rich Communications Services, as well as AI-based virtual assistants, like the Amazon Echo or Google Home has already impacted many individuals today.  But, personal assistants of the future will soon understand every human need and will have a deep understanding of our environment and surroundings.  More importantly, AI is “transforming industries” and benefiting society – but not without enormous data quantities.  That’s why Mavenir is leveraging machine learning to further integrate AI with 5G applications to build smarter networks.

5G in the fast lane

Don’t believe the hype?  Well, 5G is coming fast – and according to recent GSMA Intelligence forecasts, the number of 5G connections globally will reach 1.3 billion by 2025. The operator challenge is that on one hand, they need to reduce costs and deliver new services to keep up with the hyper-connected world, but on the other hand, they need to protect features and functionality from current suppliers. How operators can achieve this is what’s driving discussions around mobile edge computing and network slicing. Operators can’t survive simply by taking costs out of the network — revenue generation and protection are equally important.

Mavenir has developed some of the most innovative new services, such as Multi-ID virtual lines, mobile enterprise communications and Messaging as a Platform (MaaP) capabilities to leverage operators’ existing network assets to create differentiated new services. As the industry takes early steps towards 5G, operators don’t have to wait to start realizing the benefits today.

RCS Business Messaging

The interest in Rich Communication Services has increased significantly among mobile operators, brands and aggregators. The GSMA hosted an RCS Business Messaging Awareness Lab on Tuesday, as a prelude to the MWCA event. It included about 200 attendees, including speakers from key vendors, brands and aggregators who provided testimony that RCS will become a driving force in business marketing and customer engagement. Mavenir’s Carlos Aragon presented “Ad Sponsored Messaging using RCS,” including a demonstration, and created an interesting discussion about how to further monetize the RCS messaging channel.

On Wednesday, the first day of the MWCA, Mavenir also sponsored the Future Networks Seminar: RCS Business Messaging — The Future of Brand Communications where Brandon Larson provided a presentation focused on how to supply brands with a unified marketplace for RCS Business Messaging. This seminar was extremely well received, surpassing the planned seating capacity and even though the organization provided additional seats, 15 minutes before the session it was impossible to get in. We expect that the genuine interest demonstrated around RCS during this year’s congress will soon translate into live deployments of RCS Business Messaging.

In the News

Syniverse and Mavenir Partner to Accelerate RCS Business Messaging

This new partnership presents an industry first, global solution to simplify messaging reach for brands and fuel A2P revenue opportunities for mobile operators. (read press release)

North American Tier 1 Operator Launches New Services on Mavenir’s NFV CloudRange Platform

Network Slicing enables operators to launch new business models quickly and easily. With CloudRange, operators can use their existing network for slicing selected services and create additional slices for new and differentiated services that increase revenues, while delivering efficiency in the network and enhancing the quality of service and security. (read press release)

Session Highlights

At Light Reading’s breakfast workshop, Mavenir’s John Baker and other industry leaders such as Sprint, Verizon, and Qualcomm shared their thoughts on Deployment Strategies for 5G NR – the implications for cell site density and topology, time-to-market and the performance of end-user services as it relates to the potential 5G service propositions and devices.  (Learn more on 5G NR)

Mavenir’s John Baker discussed why virtualization is the key to transforming mobile network economics leading to full-scale 5G deployment with Light Reading’s Gabriel Brown.

In another power-packed two-hour session featuring presentations and panel discussions with industry leaders such as Mavenir’s own Brandon Larson, the current state of RCS and the Business Messaging market was brought to light- including the commercial opportunities, the market potential of the platform, and the strategic future vision for RCS. (Learn more on RCS)

During the panel, The Network Edge, a line-up of industry experts and Mavenir’s Bejoy Pankajakshan debated the role of ‘the edge’ in expanding network capabilities, dealing with increased traffic and closing not-spots. (Learn more on MEC)

While analysts predict that over 85% of customer interactions will take place without human interaction by 2020, this panel of industry leaders and Mavenir’s Bejoy Pankajakshan discussed if AI is really poised to improve the numerous customer pain points, including search accuracy, response time, recommendations and customer service. The jury may still be out on if there’s still room for error without the human touch? Stay tuned!

Seeing is Believing

During the event, we demonstrated a few of Mavenir’s innovative technology architectures and business models. In collaboration with Intel, Mavenir showcased a new infrastructure reference design paving the way for quick 5G deployment. And together with our partner, Syniverse, we demonstrated our complete and secure cloud-based RCS business messaging service.