>> Narrator: Live from Silicon Valley,
it's The Cube.
Covering Mobile World Congress 2017.
Brought to you by Intel.
>> Kay, welcome back everyone.
We're here live in Palo Alto, California
for SiliconANGLE Media's The Cube.
Coverage of two days of wall-to-wall,
eight a.m. pacific time to six both days.
Yesterday, Monday.
Today, Tuesday.
Breaking down the news, getting the analysis,
sharing our commentary, and getting reaction,
from here inside the studio for folks
in Silicon Valley who couldn't make it to Barcelona,
but also covering what's happening on the ground.
And of course we'd love to phone in and get commentary
directly from Barcelona,
and we have on the live Peter Jarich
who's the Chief Analyst at Global Data,
formerly a Current Analyst,
Peter thanks for taking the time,
I know it's gettin' late there.
It's close to bedtime for the people who are burnt
out and for the people who are going to go party,
they're just going out.
Thanks for--
>> Peter: You know, unfortunately
it's this thing, then dinner starts at nine o'clock,
it's still early, late nights, early mornings
but no worries, glad to talk to you guys.
>> So, obviously, the show at Mobile World Congress
this year is kind a bi-polar, as always,
you have the device people making their big
announcements on Saturday and Sunday on the weekend
leading up to the show, LG, Huawei, and everyone else,
but the big phones, and all the, you know,
the screens, that's the glam and sizzle,
but behind second half of the show is about
tel cos, right?
The transformation going on the wireless world
the, the tel co world, the service provider world,
where the new network architecture seems
to be the top story.
A new network transformation,
IOT, Internet of Things with cars, autonomous vehicles,
smart cities, and certainly 5G has been at the center
of all the action, really since yesterday and today.
So I wanted to get your take.
Is that actually what's happened,
are we reading the tea leaves on the grid properly?
Is 5G the top story, or what's your take
on the top stories out there right now?
>> Peter: Yeah, you know, I mean clearly,
as far as the buzz, where the buzz is,
you're right, 5G is sucking a lot of the energy
out of the (coughing), excuse me, out of the show.
It's interesting, I mean it's, the show is,
I feel like a proverbial blind man, (mumbling) man.
(coughing) Excuse me, I mean, there's so much
going on, that depending upon where you want to focus,
you could come away with any take away.
If you focus on the devices, you could focus
on IOT, and you could literally come away with anything.
If 5G has been the one piece of news that
is sort of in the background of anything,
I think it's in the background of everything
because in part, the definition of 5G is still broad.
Right, there's the radio access side,
there's the core network side,
IOT is a big part of 5G, reaching out to (mumbling)
industries, vertical industry is a big part of it.
So, as operators start talking about 5G,
it's easy enough for every vendor to sort of just
attach themselves in some way,
and I think that's what we're seeing here this year.
It really is just a question of,
how we get the 5G, are we ready for 5G we saw on Sunday,
the big news of acceleration,
how are we accelerating towards it,
(mumbling)
deals from a number of major mobile operators
and they're talking about how we're going
to get there.
But that's really from the transformation side
of things, completely right.
That's the big question on everyone's mind.
>> Is 5G ready honestly?
It seems to be hyped up big time.
As we said in one of our blog posts,
"Hug the hype," cause 5G people want to all go there.
But is that the real meaty story or is it,
it's kind of like the AI in my mind.
AI's obviously relevant, but where's the real AI.
We're seeing more IOT conversations
in the back channel
around service provider impact, the IOT,
so'd loved to get your thoughts on, you know,
the impact of IOT to the business model and architecture,
of the service providers.
>> Peter: Yeah, it's interesting, because IOT,
I mean, I think if we look at IOT versus
5G, right, one is solely sold in that theoretical stage,
one is, we kind of understand IOT,
and I think the number of times I've heard
people talk about IOT is the way that (mumbling)
will figure out how to grow their (mumbling)
and not just (mumbling) to the bottom line, right?
I mean, there's like, last year, and the year
before that, and the year before that,
there's a lot of discussion around the air transformation
that will be opex reduced and it'll be (mumbling)
reduced, and then some of it will save them money,
but we know that they also struggle to grow
their revenues, and proof at the topline.
I think a lot of folks are looking at
IOT, the question I think is still out there,
that I'm not necessarily seeing addressed here,
is how, right, because a lot of that focuses
on how do they move beyond just being
access providers, and we know that, yes,
we're going to be talking about the devices,
that it'll be low brand with many of them,
and so (mumbling) revenues from those may
not be where they need to be to really
help grow those revenues, and so the question
is how we (mumbling) move beyond it?
Or how does it mix with the move into industry
deep enough so that connectivity (mumbling)
be reaching enough industries, reach enough
connections, that connectivity (mumbling)
will be significant.
And I don't know that we've got an answer for that,
and everyone's talking about vertical industries.
Everyone.
And the operators, I think what's interesting,
is I heard from both operators and vendors,
that we don't know them well enough.
>> What's the key enabler--
>> Peter: I was running a panel with
CTO's from Ericson, Nokia, Huiwei,
and they all said at the end,
you know, one of the biggest concerns
for 5G is that we pin the hopes of 5G to some extent
on helping enable these vertical industries, right?
How do we reach out to mining and utilities
and smart cities, and how we make 5G be pervasive
towards not just consumers but (mumbling)
in those markets?
That there's no certainty that we actually understand
what they need, and it's (mumbling) service to them
unsuccessfully, as with some places that (mumbling)
automotive that would be good to see progress on,
a lot of them I think are still that
sort of >> Yeah.
>> Peter: We don't know enough to know how
we'll help them.
>> That's a great analysis.
We have Peter on the phone here,
an analyst breaking down the commentary.
Question for you, as an analyst,
you have a good approach on this,
and I want to get some commentary on you
around for the folks who are trying to keep
up with the turbulence,
I mean, there's so much going on,
you got wireless, which has it's own set of things,
is it more bandwidth, or more mobility,
what's the trade off,
is it a (mumbling), is this spectrum,
unlicensed, all this craziness, radios,
core network you mentioned, it's a lot of moving parts.
Question is, how do you figure out the tell
signs of success, and what are red flags,
so what are you looking for that is proof points
that things are going in the right direction
for the industry, and proof points that there's
red flags?
What do you, what's your key indicators
for benchmarking this opportunity around 5G
and network transformation?
To make all this stuff work?
Smart cities, autonomous vehicles, et cetera.
>> Peter: To be honest, it's a great question,
I think in a lot of the conversations here
come down to
the focus on business versus technology,
right, and I'm not too worried.
I mean, we need to continue to watch technology,
and make sure technology gets (mumbling)
and we need to make sure that
what we're hoping to do with 5G, that we can do,
and (mumbling) right, the idea of we found
something with (mumbling), the twee if you will,
for (mumbling),
work great.
I've got no doubt that we can solve
the tecnology issues.
Oh that's supporting, unlike the spectrum, or shared
spectrum of (mumbling) bands, a millimeter,
or whatever (mumbling).
No doubt that we can make those work.
I think where I look to make sure that things
are okay is, you know, none of this will really
matter if it's just, 5G is no different than
what we saw with 3G or 4G.
And one way to think about it is,
we moved from 1G to 2G and 2G to 3G and three to four,
it was always a fairly one dimensional move.
Right, 1G to 2G was really about more voice capacity.
2G to 3G you know, was really moving to do
basic data.
3G to 4G was more data, meaning we took
IP network.
But, you know, what we see with 5G is that it
can't just be about more data.
It can't just be about faster.
We've seen, I mean, heck, just look at the U.S.,
right, we've seen where the pricing is,
and the price wars, so just throwing more
bandwidth at this isn't going to help the operators.
What we need to do is to figure out how
to leverage these new technologies to test
new markets and grow the revenues, right, grow
their business, and I think that's why we're
hearing so many people talk about
all these different industries.
And do I know that automotive is the best example, no.
You know, I think automotive is sexy--
>> Yeah, it's eye candy.
It's total eye candy--
>> Peter: You can get people rallied around it, but.
You know what, it's public safety, you know,
automotive or utilities, or
industrial automation or retail, or whatever,
that seeing operators build those relationships,
manage to serve them, figure out how to serve them
(mumbling), that's what I'm looking for,
otherwise it's just going to be no different
than any other G.
>> Yeah.
>> Peter: And it'll be sort of a race to the bottom.
>> Yeah, I agree.
I think another thing too, when you looked
at even when wireless was exploding, the question
for the carriers and the operators was,
can they move past managing subscribers
and truck rolls, and building core competencies,
to being much more comprehensive through
their operations.
I think, now more than ever, that's the big
pressure point, isn't it?
They have to go outside of there core competencies,
traditionally, and get down and dirty.
>> Peter: Yeah, and you know I'm always encouraged
when I see interesting little business models,
right, (mumbling) AT&T move it's select products,
and try to take it internationally.
Or we've seen Verizon do this week.
It's interesting seeing those business models.
Look what Telfonica is doing,
data platforms.
You know, I think those innovations are great,
but, whether or not they work, I'm not too--
>> Yeah.
>> Peter: I'm not too (mumbling) whether or not
those work.
What I am more concerned about again is how
they reach past that consumer and just basically
business user, (mumbling) because,
you can talk about IOT and I think IOT and 5G
get going (mumbling), but with every IOT,
except for consumer IOT,
which we (mumbling)
that's (mumbling) IOT cases are all
vertical specific.
And so, you're not going to get to address things,
your (mumbling) won't, unless they come to understand
that and they show that they can actually reach
out to those (mumbling).
>> Peter Jarich, Chief Analyst at Global Data,
formerly Current Analysis, great to chat with you.
Calling in from Barcelona, thanks for taking the time.
Final question for you.
What's the bumper sticker on the show this year?
As you look at the formations of what's been
announced, and where it's going, the trajectory,
wraps up, you know, next day and a half.
What's going to be the bumper sticker
for this year's Mobile World Congress?
>> Peter: You know, honestly,
I think what's probably surprising is,
so the bumper sticker will probably be LTE
before 5G.
And what I mean is as much as we're talking
about 5G and really those being our big
sexy topics, and seeing so many operators
talking about how they see it in the near term,
going into the long term, LTE supporting them,
especially with gigabit LTE speed.
And you've got Qualcomm talking about what they can do,
(mumbling) LTE speeds are only 20 megahertz LTE
carrier than you'd even notice (mumbling).
You hear T-Mobile, who came up from the first
morning at presentation, there was a session,
media event with Ericson, and as much as Ericson
was talking about 5G, (mumbling) from T-Mobile
got to talk about how excited they are about
their LTE network, right.
And I think there is this recognition that yes,
5G is coming, but (phone cuts out).
>> Alright Peter, we just lost you there.
Quick, quick I lost my battery on my phone here,
or the speaker.
Thanks so much for your commentary, really
appreciate it.
>> Peter: No, no worries, no worries.
Thanks again, and feel free to reach out any time.
>> Alright, have a great time in Barcelona.
Get some sleep, or go out, hit the night clubs.
As always, going on the ground,
getting to our friends and colleagues
out doing the work, pounding the pavement,
that's Peter, he's got the great commentary.
We'll have that on replay as well,
and it'll be up on YouTube as well,
so this is The Cube, with more coverage
from Mobile World Congress after this short break.
(electronic music)