Spirent CEO says that assurance, validation and testing are “the closest things our customers have to a crystal ball”
Network testing, validation and benchmarking are taking on new urgency in 5G and are even helping to shape operators’ strategies for monetizing those new networks, according to Spirent Communications’ third annual report looking at 5G market drivers and insights.
Spirent based the reports on its observations during more than 1,800 5G-related customer engagements, including 800 new ones during 2021.
“Our customers have made major investments to make 5G visions a reality. Now, they are determined to extract meaningful revenues by wielding unprecedented speed, flexibility,
nimbleness and ingenuity,” wrote Eric Updyke, Spirent CEO and executive director, in the report. “Meeting this promise quickly has meant partnering in areas where they’ve previously gone it alone. Management of major operational processes is being trusted to outside parties so that attention can be focused where innovation can drive differentiation. We are seeing more stakeholders willing to settle for imperfection to get to market faster, requiring performance protections be built into live network deployments.”
Overall, Updyke added, Spirent’s business “has recently been propelled by an urgent demand to understand as much of the future as possible.” Assurance, validation and testing “were once simply hurdles to clear on the path to network rollouts,” he added. “But today, they’re the closest things our customers have to a crystal ball.”
Among the report findings:
-Spirent said that as 5G competition intensified during 2021, nearly half of service provider activity in 5G focused on service assurance and experience, including competitive benchmarking.
-The test company is seeing that customer engagements around 5G core and service assurance “started to have unique emphasis on supporting more bespoke environments for enterprises and private networks.”
-As service providers established early partnerships with public cloud providers, cloud testing and lab/test automation have become more important parts of the conversation.
-Monetization of 5G networks is “beginning to vary greatly by geography,” the report says, adding that one of the “persistent trend[s]” is “heavy dependence on advances in testing, automation and assurance to plot the most direct routes to revenue finish lines.” Dish Network, for example, has touted how its ability to rapidly test and certify network software and services (using Spirent solutions) are part of its vision for building revenues.
And, the report notes, 5G investments in both network deployments and spectrum is on the rise despite thus far lackluster revenues from 5G NonStandalone networks. “5G strategies have accelerated even as Non-Standalone (NSA)- powered consumer 5G services have fallen short of performance and revenue expectations,” as the report puts it.
-Spirent is a testing company, so its report naturally leans on the testing aspects of 5G. But it does seem to be observing some enduring changes in the role of test in the new generation of wireless technology. “Testing used to simply answer the question ‘does it
work?’ Now, it’s about ‘can 5G help us get to where we want to go next?'” the company said in the report, adding, “Test is no longer a precursor to rollouts, but a permanent companion.”
-Open RAN is emerging, but the testing reality that Spirent is observing is somewhat different than the high-level conversations around Open RAN tech. Spirent says at this point, it is being asked to support O-RAN testing for 4G rural and indoor small cell projects. “For all the talk of O-RAN cost savings and vendor diversification, the impetus for these small trials and deployments is about proving the technology, and its robustness, interoperability and feature parity,” the test company said. “Operators will also be studying the flexibility benefits O-RAN affords them as they consider larger-scale 5G ambitions, including those in emerging vertical markets.”
-Among the revenue-generating use cases for 5G that operators are looking at, right now, are Fixed Wireless Access, 5G “speed boosters” that allow customers to purchase on-demand performance boosts; multi-view experiences of entertainment or sports events; security surveillance; content delivery networks; mobile multi-player gaming; and augmented/virtual reality for advanced consumer applications.
The full report can be downloaded here.
