YouSaid · the spoken record

Mohan Gyani

lines on the record: 91
first: 2022-08-09
most recent: 2022-08-09
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“around network cost structure. So that gives me a leg up on what we could do, what business models we could experiment with, and the actions that we will take. You will see us very decisive in our approach that we don't want just to be another carrier in Japan. We do want to be a leading mobile operators in this country.”
2022-08-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · The risky new way of building mobile broadband networks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Amazing network must be delivered. And second is the point membership loyalty that I talked to you about earlier. We think that's a huge differentiator from the competitors just to bring much bigger value and being obsessed about the customer experience and the services that we have offered. So from being an infant where we are today, I'm really, really happy about what the team has accomplished. But we have a lot of work that we need to focus on to finish the last remaining 3%. The last remaining 3% of our build is extremely important to achieve the quality of coverage that we need to really be at par and better. Now, I would tell you this. I know my cost today is 40% cheaper in running my network than any competitor in Japan. I have an advantage that is virtually impossible for anybody in Japan to compete against”
2022-08-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · The risky new way of building mobile broadband networks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Canter for is not trivial. So in two years we've been able to build a network to cater for ninety six percent of Japan coverage in two years. This is just to me I have never seen the speed that a network could be built at this scale. So our ambition is not to be a fourth mobile operator in Japan. It is by far, by far to be a highly disruptive ecosystem provider in which we want to take the number one position in this country. The approach we take here is very simple. Number one, we need to ensure ubiquitous high quality coverage is delivered anywhere you go in Japan. We're almost almost there. And I'm talking about not just outdoor high rises, indoor, deep indoor basements, subways, anything and everywhere you go.”
2022-08-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · The risky new way of building mobile broadband networks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Tell you what I'm really, really proud about what we have done in Japan. I think for many people that have been through this journey of building networks, they will know it's not a trivial process. So for us, we had two pragmatic challenges. Number one, go prove to the world that a new technology actually works and delivers on cost resiliency reliability. That's check mark. Done. And that's not just by me telling you today, but audited by third party, look at the performance, quality and reliability we do. The second aspect, if you're in the mobile business, I think you have one area that new technology cannot easily solve for you, which you need to have ubiquitous coverage everywhere and anywhere you go. Whether, you know, I mean, if you come to Japan and Tokyo, I'm not sure if you ever visited this area, but you'll know this is a concrete jungle. It's amazing the density that exists in an area like Tokyo, the subways and the coverage you have to provide for them and the amount of capacity you have to”
2022-08-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · The risky new way of building mobile broadband networks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Many companies like Fox Gun would start to exist, that they will start to appreciate that the value they need to do is to build hardware for old suppliers. By the way, maybe the large four, maybe Ericsson, Nokia also, or Ericsson Nokia will one day have to look and evaluate a pivoting opportunity, a pivoting to go into a software world, a software world that maybe have a much better valuation. By the way, look at the stock price today of traditional telecom companies. And let me give you an analogy. Look at the stock price of ServiceNow, a digital workflow tool. Look at the difference. One is a complete SaaS model. One lives on a traditional business model. But I don't think the market appreciates and recognize that this is maybe the right thing to do. So I think for me, it seems like it's inevitable. It's just a matter of time for pivoting that needs to happen by the traditional vendors for me. I want this hardware to be.”
2022-08-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · The risky new way of building mobile broadband networks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The elegance that we have in the United States around silicon companies is just cool. It is amazing how genuinely they are one of the most innovative in the world in terms of capability. It still exists in the US, by the way. We still control this. Today, Qualcomm, Intel, Nvidia, Broadcom, and many other companies provide a lot of technology by the way that is needed for these products, right? We go and build reference design directly with the Silicon companies. And then I take that reference design and I go to contract manufacturer. And then I say build this reference design. So this new way of working, for me, it seems like at least in my opinion, that's the future world. What I want to see, hopefully one day for the hardware supply chain ecosystem,”
2022-08-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · The risky new way of building mobile broadband networks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think, first of all, to differentiate, let's say, the large companies today versus the new entrants, right? The new entrance on the hardware, I think they are comfortable and content. Comfortable and content being and understood the value they provide by being commodity supplier. Let me give you an analogy. Let's say today Apple uses Foxconn to manufacture its devices. Now I'm sure FoxChan will not tell you that they're not happy about this business model. But Foxcon has built its entire strategy about maybe high value engineering, high yield and high capacity manufacturing because that's how they make revenue for. They don't bundle after support services, et cetera. So what I found out in the New Age manufacturing companies that I was looking for, I was looking for companies like Foxconn, companies that understand the business model, the new business model that I want to create. So the approach I have taken, first of all, the most amazing thing that probably the US or some companies are not aware of.”
2022-08-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · The risky new way of building mobile broadband networks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Compared to solving this problem around some of the Arith units that one would need for these base stations. I know that is today my personal challenge and I know the industry as a whole need to solve for this.”
2022-08-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · The risky new way of building mobile broadband networks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Be different, you know, turned out to be a really, really big challenge. So the approach that we have taken in Japan is, again, go to middle-sized companies, startup. I funded them, encouraged them to build the hardware that we need. But I tell you that still remains my biggest challenge and my biggest headache is spending time to try to find a company that has capability and scale to become the hardware supplier for OpenRAN. If we solve this, a lot of the pieces now are addressed in OpenRAN. If we solve this complexity of where you find someone that has the capability, the scale to build at the right cost structure, the hardware you need for both 4G and 5G, the rest, I think, again, not to underestimate the software important, but I think it's easier to solve the issue.”
2022-08-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · The risky new way of building mobile broadband networks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The antenna has a transmitting unit called either a remote radio head or in five G, it's called massive MIMO. Now these products need to support a huge diversity of spectrum bands because in every country there is different spectrum bands. There is different bandwidth. Now if you are a traditional supplier say Nokia, Ericsson, Huawei, ZTE, these companies have invested and put a large organization, tens and thousands of people. Their entire job is to create this hardware, this massive hardware that could support all these diversified spectrum bands. So my number one challenge in Rocket and Mobile is to find these hardware suppliers because there is not a whole lot of them for OpenRAN. And the hardware suppliers that could support diversified spectrum requirements because company to country”
2022-08-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · The risky new way of building mobile broadband networks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Inside this cabinet, there is something called the baseband. This is the brain of the base station. And this baseband, it was built on custom ASICs that large companies needed to constantly invest into this hardware development for. And so for me, the first thing that we have done is to remove the software and move it into what is called cuts appliances off the shell appliance like a traditional data center server. So the software piece, not to say that it was not difficult, but I recognized that the software only gets better, only gets better. There is no issues with software. The more difficult part was, you know, the hardware components of what you need for the base station is really, really complex. And what I mean by the hardware, at every site there's this antenna.”
2022-08-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · The risky new way of building mobile broadband networks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Let me tell you the part that I was surprised about, not to underestimate it, but the parts that are simpler than I thought first, what is more challenging? If I take you to a traditional base station and you and I examine what is really there at the site, this radio site, the base station, you will find that almost 95% of every deployment is the same. Basically, there is a big refrigerator cabinet.”
2022-08-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · The risky new way of building mobile broadband networks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“To buy a device. And from a carrier point of view, I mean, I still argue if they don't subsidize, maybe they could lower the cost of their tariffs. And I think it's just still an evolution for us in mobile. We pretty much adopted what India has done. And then we said, bring your own device and we promoted all these devices that you're talking about in India. We brought them now into our e-commerce site in Japanese. It's called Ichiba. So we brought them into Ichiba website, gave them a storefront, let them advertise, let them market our Ichiba website has massive amount of daily active users that come to it. And we don't benefit necessarily from selling their devices, but we want us not to subsidize any device. That's the objective.”
2022-08-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · The risky new way of building mobile broadband networks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“If you don't like us, you could leave. If you like us, you are part of our family. So we made it really simple because to a certain extent it is a dream for us to build an open ecosystem. So one thing we've done that we're trying to see its relative success because we own a very, very large e-commerce website, we opened up a storefront for open device markets come in, purchase and acquire. Now the difference between India and the US is India does not subsidize the device, while the US, you know, as a consumer, you have been trained that you could buy an iPhone by signing a contract and the iPhone would be subsidized by the carrier. So I think a consumer could benefit from this open device ecosystem, but also a little bit of the mentality change would have to exist to say, well, will a consumer accept the idea that he has...”
2022-08-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · The risky new way of building mobile broadband networks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I mean, I think a couple of things in India that really benefit the country quite a bit. Of course, when you have volume, when you have massive volume, people are intrigued to enter this economies that exist. I think in the US, and certain things have changed also, by the way, in Japan now, the government policies, especially in Japan, is mandating the support for open device ecosystem. In our case, we even told them that 100% of our device portfolio will support ESIM. Now think about this. ESIM gives you the ability and flexibility. Within one second to switch carriers, by the way, I mean, just, oh, I don't like this. I like this. So it gives you choices. The freedom of choices is just unparalleled. And then we started, we as Racket and the Mobile, we changed the business model. We said, look, we'll enable ESIM. There's no fee determination of contracts. There's no fees for anything.”
2022-08-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · The risky new way of building mobile broadband networks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Flip this question around real quick. One of my favorite things about the Indian smartphone market is how wide open it is on the device side. This is something that happened after Geo rolled out, but I was friends with a former editor of Gadget 316 in India, Kunaldua, and he told me my team covers 12 to 15 Android phone launches a week because the device market is wide open. You can connect anything and there's dual sims and the actual consumer experience of picking a phone is of unlimited choice. That is not the case in the United States. It's not the case in other countries. What do you think the benefits of that version of things are? Because I'm quite honestly jealous of it, that there's that much choice in that market.”
2022-08-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · The risky new way of building mobile broadband networks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Continue to engage with them. You could tell that this company is obsessed about quality. I mean, this is I liked. And I thought if we clear the hurdle of getting their acceptance, then it shows another validation for us that we're running a high quality network and they're a strategic, critical part of our supplier ecosystem today in Japan.”
2022-08-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · The risky new way of building mobile broadband networks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, no, I think Apple definitely the device vendors were very supportive. I mean, the skepticism came from my opinion, fear and certainty and doubt that I believe traditional OEMs and traditional vendors wanted to tell everybody that this technology is horrible. And to such an extent, I ignored everything. And I still till today, I mean, I would argue with anybody. I said, you cannot argue the benefit of cloud brought to IT and enterprise. Now there is undisputable benefit to this. But when it comes to telco, what would you argue the advantage and benefit of moving all your telco workloads to cloud? So I think this debate is ending and it's ending much quicker and a better place for everybody. But I would tell you, I mean, I have huge admiration to what Apple has done. It's really impressive company. And for me, the more that we can...”
2022-08-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · The risky new way of building mobile broadband networks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So on everybody, I mean, I really would encourage anybody listening to the podcast. I mean, it's just sometimes amazes me, amazes me. Rather than celebrating maybe our courageous attempt to do something good for everybody, the early days of our journey was all about skepticism, you know, like this will not work, this will not work.”
2022-08-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · The risky new way of building mobile broadband networks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Device manufacturing companies, but I also knew that this is a process of identifying issues, solving them, coming back to the device vendors, whether it is Apple, Samsung, and others, and continue to reiterate in improving the quality. So I went through the same journey that I did in Geo and went through the same journey in mobile, but we got finally just slightly after our commercial launch, when we got our commercial certification on being able to sell Apple devices. That was a big relief for all of us, a big relief because it means that we have reached a quality level that they deem is minimal acceptable to carry the device. And of course, we monitor the quality every day. So I'm really, really happy that we've done this now. We have proven that OpenRAN network, especially the software that we have built in Japan, is running at an amazing reliability.”
2022-08-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · The risky new way of building mobile broadband networks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I'm being really honest about this. I really liked it. I mean, look, their burden to quality was really high, and their ability to accept and certify a quality of network, I thought, you know, if we get the certification that we needed from them, that's another third-party audit, if you will, that I have met a big quality hurdle. So in the early days, I will tell you, I mean, Apple engineering team is really, really strong. I mean, they really understood the technology, but their concern was, okay, the technology is really great, that there's a lot of facets to it that is fascinating, but no matter how great it is, I had to pass a set of KPIs and metrics for device certification. Now, this was not trivial. It really, really was not trivial. And for me personally, I went by the way through the SERM journey in GO, right? So I kind of have some ideas about the burdens to acceptance from...”
2022-08-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · The risky new way of building mobile broadband networks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I mean, I'll leave it up to your imagination of who one of the world's largest device manufacturer before we got approved as a mobile company to be able to sell their devices. I have tell you the pleasure, the pleasure of working with the likes of Apple for me”
2022-08-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · The risky new way of building mobile broadband networks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You build out the ORN networks, one thing that we know very well in the United States is that our handset vendors, Apple, Samsung, Google, Motorola, are very picky about qualifying their devices for networks.”
2022-08-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · The risky new way of building mobile broadband networks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Break of this network, and it's been really, really an amazing journey to take all the lessons learned of Japan and be able now to bring him to Germany, we're at the early stages, but I'm really optimistic to see what the future would hold for open run as a whole, for symphony. But I will tell you at this, at least at least now, Racket and Mobile and Racket and Symphony has opened a healthy debate, well-needed debate in the industry about supplier radio access supplier alternatives and diversification that we need to move away into a software-driven network. And I think that's what we feel, that's a big, big accomplishment for us.”
2022-08-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · The risky new way of building mobile broadband networks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Today in the US, I mean, since it's public, I could talk about it. As I mentioned to you, it is for me, not just about an ORAN discussion. It's about almost the whole story. So we've announced in last Mobile Walk Congress a partnership that we're doing with AT&T today AT&T is working with Racket and Symphony on a few disruptive applications around the digital workflow and the operation for wireless and wireline, same as Telefonica in UK, Telefonica in Germany. And our first, by the way, big breakthrough as an integrated stack. And the most exciting thing is also in the heart of Europe in Germany. We are the supplier for a new grainfield operator called 1 and 1. I told the CEO of 1 and 1, my dream is to build Rakaten2.0 in Germany. So we are building the entire fabric.”
2022-08-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · The risky new way of building mobile broadband networks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I know, and this is one of the reasons I honestly accepted and volunteered because I thought for the short term it's important to be able to control these two ecosystems because In Japan it's a quality sensitive market. Now, if I build a high quality network, nobody will doubt that Symfony Technology Stack is not credible, it's not scalable, it's not reliable, it's not secure. So to that extent, I think we are uniquely positioned because our ability to deliver on a robust automation platform, open RAN software technology architecture, an innovative edge cloud software. I don't see many in the industry that technology capability today that Symfony could offer. People have bits and pieces of what we have. But when I look at the integrated stack, I'm really, really happy to see that we have some unique intellectual properties and IPs that are really remarkably differentiated from the market today.”
2022-08-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · The risky new way of building mobile broadband networks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, to be very honest with you, I think the more that enter the space, for me, I welcome it. I love the idea of having more competitors into the space. A, it challenges my own team to stay on top of their toes. That's really good. But also at the same time, by having more entrants that come into the space, it helps me cultivate the hardware ecosystem. Today, Symphony is uniquely positioned. Why I would say there's not a whole lot of people that could provide the integrated stack that Symphony has. In one essence, Symphony's biggest advantage, it has a running life lab carrying large commercial customer base called Racketa Mobile. And nobody tells me, don't do this or that in Racket and Mobile. I could do disruptive ideas, disruptive innovation, test and validate new products and technologies before, giving them to anybody else.”
2022-08-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · The risky new way of building mobile broadband networks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“All about platform, and I'm really, really enjoying to see the advancements that we have enabled. And we are maybe in the early journey still. I still have a lot of other things that I want to accomplish before we say symphony succeeded.”
2022-08-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · The risky new way of building mobile broadband networks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“To cultivate and create an ecosystem for people that just enjoy being into this hardware design, but it's not us, it's not our fabric, it's not our DNA. I thought that, and I'll tell you the more I looked at the world and the more you see the amount of success companies have had by investing heavily into the right skill sets, whether it is from data science, AI, ML, and the various software organizations that they have built, this is what I thought we needed. So today for Racket and Symphony, if you go to our largest R&D center in India, we have now over 3,500 people that they only do software. Only software. And that to me is an asset that you just unprecedented in terms of capability, what we could build, what we could deliver and the scale that we could deliver at. So I don't want to invest in hardware. I just think that it's not my business. And our investment is...”
2022-08-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · The risky new way of building mobile broadband networks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I have no hardware engineers at all, none. And the way I've done it is from the beginning, this was done by design. I knew that hardware, I could create an ecosystem. And I don't want to be into the hardware business. I knew that from a fundamental business model.”
2022-08-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · The risky new way of building mobile broadband networks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Rakat and have done it this way, but I do think networks of the future must have this essence of software and must have autonomy into its DNA, not just about OpenRAM by the way, this is a holistic approach from fundamental transformation in the network architecture.”
2022-08-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · The risky new way of building mobile broadband networks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Supported by an amazing leadership team that's Soteric. The world is your canvas higher from anywhere. And I've brought in 17 nationalities relocated not as expats, relocated as full time employees of our office in Japan. Bringing this diversified multicultured organization was the key and I hired, by the way, I did my own recruiting, I handpicked my team. So my focus initially was is, you know, what is the top of DNA I need to disrupt the DNA of, I call it the spirit of the warriors that are willing to take these tough challenges, willing to take the bruises, don't get discouraged by people telling you this will not work, et cetera. So long story short, I think I would not build a network that looks the way that it's looked for 30 years. I would build a network.”
2022-08-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · The risky new way of building mobile broadband networks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, the first thing I would tell you, my focus maybe would be a lot different than many people would think. It is not about technology. I have never in my life approached a problem where thinking technology is an issue. I think we do not give ourselves enough credit about how creative we are as human beings and our ability to solve complex problems. We are just amazing beings. Now, we don't sometimes give ourselves enough credit for what we could possibly do. First thing I would start with is structure, organization, and culture. What is the culture you need to have to do amazing descriptive things? So that's what I, when I moved into Japan, look, I mean, I didn't know anything about Japan. I always knew that I wanted to visit it, but I didn't know the complexities and the challenges I'm going to face. And one of the key things I've done, I mean, imagine in the heart of Tokyo, largely driven.”
2022-08-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · The risky new way of building mobile broadband networks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We should talk about latency, latency, latency. How do you deliver 4 millisecond latency on a wireless network? This hasn't happened yet. Unlicensed spectrum. So I think those are the things that I would tell you. You're going to see the advantage of this software architecture and the benefit and the creation of new age application cloud gaming. And even when we talk, if people are getting excited about metaverse, metaverse will need, must need this edge use cases to become live into the mobile fabric.”
2022-08-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · The risky new way of building mobile broadband networks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“From large data centers and moved them all the way to the edge is trivial, trivial, easy. Now if you have to deal with hardware reallocation and move hardware from here to here, that becomes more complex. So when the edge use cases in Racket and Mobile gets delivered, I will tell you, you're going to hear hopefully in the near future a very, very amazing news about the lowest latency in the world, lowest latency in the world delivered over 5G network. And that is the beginning of what is possible now for maybe new use cases for the consumer if I think of cloud gaming, it's never been successful, at least on wireless. Never been successful because networks itself could not sustain the latency that cloud gaming would need and require. So I think there will be a new era of applications that are going to discover not speed. I think speed is...”
2022-08-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · The risky new way of building mobile broadband networks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Standalone mobile, we still are committed to our break even point and we need to make it as a profitable standalone business, but the group as a whole has just remarkable synergistic impact in our business. That's the benefit and value. Now there's another benefit on the network architecture. When this network moved into these software pieces, I think today we talk in the essence of marketing about edge. Now edge to me, definition is so simple. It is all about bringing content as close to your device as humanly possible. To bring content close to you, I would always argue if you have nothing but virtual machines or network functions that are software, the ability for you to move these software components.”
2022-08-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · The risky new way of building mobile broadband networks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, first of all, we have to be profitable. Part of the commitment in Japan is when, of course, spectrum here is not auction in Japan. We are allocated spectrum. So you're given this spectrum, but there are conditions to it. You cannot just run a business that is not profitable, stand-alone. So we will break even in Rocket and Mobile and make it standalone. But the way that I think about it, it's not subsidized by the ecosystem. If I acquire you as a mobile customer contribution of you potentially buying from e-commerce travel, I am using connectivity to empower the purchases of these 70 plus internet services. So we're actually contributing to the larger group as long as this total top line revenue is increased because of mobile contribution, I think the group as a whole is going to be in good shape.”
2022-08-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · The risky new way of building mobile broadband networks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“There is no land. So from a choice's point of view, we made life super simple. We bundled local, we bundled international, we bundled And we tied it synergistically to the larger ecosystem of Raketand. So as you buy things, let's say on e-commerce, as you buy things on our travel website, as you buy things from Racketan Energy, as you subscribe to Racket and Bank, you acquire points. Now these points, you could use them to pay off your cellular bill, even the $27, by the way, could be zero, effectively could be zero, by the synergistic impact of other services you consume in Rakuten and the points you acquire from all of them.”
2022-08-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · The risky new way of building mobile broadband networks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, no, huge. I mean, one of the key reasons that Rakatan was encouraged, supported, and we were determined to enter the mobile segment in Japan. At the time, we felt that competition is stagnant in Japan. The cost per user is one of the most expensive in the world. So we took, first of all, from the end consumer, the first thing they benefit from. We took, of course, a chapter from geostrategy on lowering the cost, burden, and economic. But we also did something that is so simple. At the time, the average rate plans in Japan was sitting about $100, by the way, per user. And we dropped that cost for $27, go crazy and limited. And there is no caps. Now, when you go inside our stores, we change everything. We said, look, you don't need to think about the plans. There is only one plan, that's it.”
2022-08-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · The risky new way of building mobile broadband networks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And as the number increase, there is no direct proportionality between number of units in the network versus number of employees in network. Absolutely no direct correlation whatsoever anymore. So that to me is what I think cloud is all about. And then all the things on top of it is modules that I think you need to have to derive to the operational efficiency that at least we did in Japan.”
2022-08-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · The risky new way of building mobile broadband networks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Reliability and a cost efficiency that one could never ever imagine. By the way, on the cost, think about this is, I call it, this is hyperoperation structure. $279,000 radiating elements and the operational hit count in Racket and Mobile is still sitting below 250 people.”
2022-08-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · The risky new way of building mobile broadband networks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Most of the telecom networks across the world, even till today, are still running into boxes of hardware. Having a cloud network means that your workloads now are moved away from proprietary implementation to a complete network function software components, software components that run with the beauty of what is called microservices for software and the elegance of things that cloud inherently supports like capacity management, autoelasticity, scale in, scale out. Now these basic terminology, I'm not telling you things that has been invented by Rakata Mobile, but luckily thanks to Google, Microsoft, Amazon, they innovated like crazy on the cloud, and I've just benefited from the innovation that they have done to deliver on scalability, resilience,”
2022-08-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · The risky new way of building mobile broadband networks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“If I give you an image four years ago, I was asked to do a keynote in Japan. That was my first day here. And thanks to my translator, I think people understood the concept I was explaining to them. I said, Here is an image of what we don't want to build. If I show you not the base station side, but even in the core network, how to deliver voice, video, messaging”
2022-08-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · The risky new way of building mobile broadband networks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Supply chain, so we are no longer just counting on four. We have 11 hardware suppliers. We have a common software stack. And the big building block, which is this OSS, we have enabled our own platforms and tools. So Rakaten has purchased LTOSTAR from Boston. We have purchased a cloud innovative cloud company in Silicon Valley called Robin.io for our edge cloud. We have purchased OSS company called Inui and formulated this integrated technology stack that is now part of Racket and Symphony.”
2022-08-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · The risky new way of building mobile broadband networks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The software Altio Star provided the radio software for this entire open access network in Japan. And now Altio Star software is running over 290,000 radiating elements. I mean, this is massive. A 98% of population coverage of Japan is served there. The large vendors, you know, I mean, this is the part I will tell you, and I give them huge credit. One of the larger vendors, Nokia. I tell you, they had a very, very big debate. I told Nokia, I want to buy your hardware, but I don't want to buy your software. I mean, this is also an idea that they debated internally. I know their board had to approve it, but this is the beauty of software disaggregation. So now I buy one hardware aspect of pneumokia. An Altio Star is running the radio software for that platform. So this disaggregation now, A, we have diversity.”
2022-08-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · The risky new way of building mobile broadband networks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'll tell you something that we have done. So, the foundation of the success of Rakatan Mobile today started by Rakatan itself, enabling and acquiring one of the most destructive companies in this open RAN space. So we bought a company in Boston called Altio Star. I thought Altio Star had everything one would dream about, except nobody would give him a chance. So the way that we did things is I diversified my hardware supply chain where I purchased hardware through 11 suppliers, not four. So I did massive diversification now on the supply chain. I mandated where manufacturing can happen. So in terms of product security, chipsets in the era that we entered around heightened security, especially around 5G, I also felt really, really good about our ability to be controlled manufacturing and supply chain.”
2022-08-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · The risky new way of building mobile broadband networks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Two issues. She has one, I think as an industry, and I tell you, I'm not saying anything that nobody else understand the facts out of it, is we did one big mistake that we don't reward startups in the way they should be rewarded. We don't support them the way they should be supported. Our ability to incubate, help, and build an eco, a thriving ecosystem that is building new innovations, new ideas, new startup. I think in telecom, nobody would argue that to me is still really a dream and a reality that everybody wants to see happening, but we're not there today. Look, to do what we have done in Japan, I will tell you, it was complex. It was not simple. It was not easy. And the risk of associating, you know, when you have a running network and carrying massive amount of traffic, of course there are risks that you're going to have to take.”
2022-08-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · The risky new way of building mobile broadband networks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Correct. So, those are the base stations, and they attribute to about 70% of the capex. So they are by far the one area that nobody and no startup have ever embraced an idea to say, you know what, why don't we try to disaggregate this? Why don't we start to move away from the traditional architecture for how these space stations are deployed, which runs on custom hardware, custom ASICs, to now a true software that runs on commodity appliance equivalent to what you would find inside data centers. So this concept and ideas, honestly, as an industry been talked about, but nobody was willing to take the risk at all in any startup. Maybe part of it is Maybe I'm wrong in this area your job is secure. You pick a traditional vendor, maybe that's four years ago, what I was thinking through.”
2022-08-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · The risky new way of building mobile broadband networks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“If you look at a pie chart and say, where do we spend money regardless of geography, regardless of country, seventy to eighty percent of your spend always goes into this thing is called this radioaxis. This radio axis today has been a private club that's been really meant for about four or five companies and that's it. There is no diversification of supply chain. You have no option but to buy from Ericsson, Nokia, Huawei or ZT. Nobody else could sell you the products of radioaxis.”
2022-08-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · The risky new way of building mobile broadband networks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“As a company that did maybe what Tesla has done for the electric industry, autonomy in car and the analogy of autonomy in mobile network. Autonomy in mobile network is an absolutely, absolutely an amazing opportunity to build a resilient, secure, reliable network that actually have, I think, better security architecture, better resiliency, and does not need the complexity of the way we run and manage networks of today. So that was the first building block, right? I mean, and by the way, the impact of this big building blocks is massive. And I'll explain to you that the delta on organizational efficiency between racket and mobile and other telcos today. Now, the second, if you look at the cost structure for mobile network, and I couldn't also do this in Reliance G at the time,”
2022-08-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · The risky new way of building mobile broadband networks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT