As FWA and sustainability become mainstream for operators, a coalition of tech companies launch a new forum to drive openness in the digital economy
FWA: Scaling the success
The end of Day 2 saw a panel on fixed wireless access (FWA) – described as the breakthrough application for 5G. While some speakers pointed to the role of FWA as a stop gap until fibre is rolled out more fully, Nene Maiga (CEO, Orange Botswana) considered 5G FWA a future-proof way to deliver affordable connectivity to everyone. Given the low density of the domestic market, attempting to deploy fibre nationwide wouldn’t make sense and would involve too much capex. Aayush Bhatnagar (SVP, Jio Platforms) also stated that the cost per connection can be significantly lower than fibre as infrastructure costs are shared across multiple homes. Bhatnagar noted that Jio sees 5G FWA as just another connectivity layer, and that it’s not sold to consumers based on the technology. Sandy Motley (President, Fixed Networks, Nokia) went further to suggest only 1% of customers on FWA will understand (or know about) the underlying technology. Both Bhatnagar and Motley highlighted the benefits of mmWave spectrum in providing faster speeds over FWA and in addressing bandwidth challenges that have perhaps not seen it adopted as widely as expected. According to Joseph Russo (EVP & President, Global Networks & Technology, Verizon), assignments of 5G spectrum (i.e. C band and mmWave) have unlocked a whole new proposition for FWA, helping to drive choice in the US broadband market. Maiga agreed but with only 50MHz in the C band currently, wanted to see more spectrum awarded and at fair price in order to develop Orange Botswana’s 5G FWA offering further.
Coalition for Open Digital Ecosystems (CODE) fireside chat
The Coalition for Open Digital Ecosystems (CODE) was launched to promote the principles of openness and foster collaboration among academics, consumers, companies and policymakers. Founding members (Google, Honor, Lenovo, Lynx, Meta, Motorola, Nothing, Opera, Qualcomm and Wire) held a drinks reception and fireside chat during the conference. Markus Reinisch (VP Public Policy, Meta) acknowledged it’s a diverse group of companies that have come together to promote an open ecosystem because they have two things in common: 1) openness embedded in how they operate; and 2) all have experienced what it means to be operating in a closed ecosystem and the barriers it creates. Renate Nikolay (DG CNECT) reminded us that openness came first with privacy and the new data protection rules (GDPR and consumer choice over data), but that we are now facing lock-in and a lack of consumer choice. For her, the DMA brings accountability, transparency and the prospect of freer choice. She is conscious that the world is watching Europe (as a pioneer of digital rulemaking), and she feels that pressure as a regulator.
Attention soon turned to designated gatekeepers under the DMA. Nikokay acknowledged of course that some CODE members are designated gatekeepers, but we were reminded it’s not inconsistent to be a gatekeeper and committed to openness. We learnt of the intense period of cooperation both before and since designation and that new engineering solutions will be required to “break open these companies”. Reinisch pointed to the difference between a Meta and an Amazon to show not all gatekeepers are created equal and that ”there are gatekeepers to gatekeepers”. Meta sees itself as a downstream (to borrow from a telecoms analogy) gatekeeper in this ecosystem. Jan Standal (VP, Product Marketing & Communications, Opera) acknowledged that CODE is still very new and the early days of working out what and how it will work. Reinisch directly addressed the elephant in the room in terms of it being a group of companies with very diverse interests. We were told the organisation was “in a wonderful honeymoon phase where it hasn’t had to think yet about disagreements between members.” For now, the focus is on where there is alignment and that these challenges are common in interest groups in other industries.
The coalition appears to want to focus on raising awareness of openness (one of the perceived problems) and bring this to life rather than present all of the solutions at this stage. It may well not end up as a lobbying, consultation-writing organisation. Standal pointed to the different obligations in different markets Opera faces and the development challenges of that – i.e. having to develop different products for different markets in order to comply. For him, success looks like more competition and better products. Reinisch wants to see more choice – both for consumers and developers – particularly in Europe. Both recognised that we can’t always have global regulation, but do want common principles. They recognised the huge challenge of achieving this, but stressed that fragmentation in approaches will make things harder for everyone.
Nikolay said the EC is already looking ahead to test the commitments from gatekeepers and that CODE could be useful as part of that (i.e as an evidence gathering forum). Interestingly she said that from an EC’s perspective, coordinated industrial alliances are better and more helpful to work with. When asked whether consumers care about openness, Standal pointed to forthcoming research from Opera that shows when consumers switch browsers their experience improves. From Meta’s perspective it’s developers too who are locked in – and the impact on society of this are the apps consumers will never have. Renate expressed that “it’s totally ok to have a good business” and “totally ok to have security considerations so long as they’re justified” – a direct reference to Apple’s previous arguments here. When it’s not ok – then the EC will act. From Meta’s perspective encryption is an open standard and warned that we shouldn’t fall into a binary world where only closed things are safe.
When challenged that it’s quite late in the day for the EC to regulate the digital economy, Renate said it was wrong to say nothing has been done given the antitrust push (both in Europe and elsewhere). She pointed to years of experimentation with self regulation (particularly in online safety), and the learnings on both sides from this approach. She stressed how it’s sometimes wise to wait a moment and observe a bit, and it will only be a matter of time before we see “the famous Brussels effect”. If Europe had done the DMA and DSA five years ago, it would’ve been too early in her view. She referenced the various “scandals” involving some gatekeepers as a useful background and learning experience. Reinisch was in complete agreement on this point. He warned against ”the premature cementing of the regulatory solutions”. For him, 15 years feels about right.
Embracing consumer-led sustainability
The conversation started with the optimistic note that sustainability had moved in recent years from a buzzword to a central business proposition for operators. Daniel Hernandez Ortega (SVP Devices & Consumer IoT, Telefonica) built on that idea, sharing Telefonica’s six pillar programme for sustainability across the lifetime of a mobile device, from manufacturing to recycling. Discussing the work done at the beginning of the cycle with device manufacturing, James Kitto, (Vice President, Samsung Electronics), shared that the use of durable and recycled materials is already improving the lifetime and the sustainability of device hardware. Additionally, in making a commitment to seven years of security and operating system updates for all devices, Kitto noted Samsung is also baking sustainability into the software of devices. Similarly, he detailed how prioritising component-level repairs, similar to the aims of right-to-repair frameworks, has brought down the costs of common repairs such as screen replacements and kept the same devices in the hands of users for longer.
Talking about the growing refurbishment and repurposing market for devices, Georgiann Reigle (Co-Founder and CEO, Kingfisher) suggested that by improving the customer experience with device trade-ins at the operator-level, refurbishment and resale programmes could grow their volume exponentially. With supply the greatest problem in the refurbishment market, she argued that the global 5-10% trade-in rate for device purchasing needed to strive for something closer to a one-to-one ratio in order to meet demand and to achieve circularity for the market. Varun Krishnan (Managing Director, FinTech & Connected Devices Tech, Vodafone) explained how value for consumers through trade-in based pricing and refurbished device markets is one of the core hooks operators can use to increase the supply of devices eligible for repair and resale. Daniel Hernandez Ortega also discussed how efficient refurbishment programmes have also been able to navigate network shutdowns by prioritising the trade-in of newer 4G- and 5G-compatible devices.
Elsewhere around the conference on Day 3
In a session on intelligent computing, panellists detailed the applications of AI, virtual world and quantum technologies already at work today. Discussing the applications of virtual worlds in industrial settings, Aviv Shapira (CEO and Co-Founder, XTEND) predicted that telepresence for network management and maintenance will change the way site monitoring and inspections work. James Kaplan (CEO and Co-Founder, MeetKai) made a similar pitch for the use of generative AI to create cheaper digital twins of industrial sites and networks, bringing down business costs for digitising a range of common functions. On the future of quantum computing, Ilana Wisby (CEO, Oxford Quantum Circuits) noted that the quantum industry is on a timeline about five years behind that of AI, and the industry is already learning from the regulatory and ethical challenges of AI that can inform how to leverage other technologies for the public good. Across all of the presentations, panellists agreed that while these technologies are billed as the future, there are a number of existing use cases which operators and other industries should be paying attention to now.
