Speaking at the HCLTech booth at MWC, Kalyan Kumar, Global Chief Technology Officer and Head – Ecosystem at HCLTech and Chief Product Officer at HCLSoftware, says the question is no longer around why organizations should use 5G, but how they can accelerate adoption and generate revenue from those new solutions and services.

Kumar explains that MWC attendees are focused on three core elements when it comes to 5G.

The first is around accelerating the adoption of the technology. The second is around monetization. And the third is around coordinating with the increasing presence of hyperscalers and cloud providers at the event.

The increased presence of hyperscalers and cloud providers at MWC shows that a new 5G ecosystem is being formed around the telecom operator, the telecom network equipment provider, the ISP (internet service provider) and the hyperscaler, along with the systems integrator.

Kumar adds: “The telco operator is now looking at the enterprise value chain...how they can go up it and create a better monetization of the network.”

Supporting the telco in 5G ambitions

Supporting telco adoption and the monetization of 5G solutions are technology service and software providers, like HCLTech and HCLSoftware.

Kumar highlights three products that are enabling journey:

1. “ANA (Augmented Network Automation) is a unique product that has some very interesting use cases. One is the end-to-end RAN management across multiple vendors. We support both classic proprietary RAN and virtual RAN products.

2. “HCL iObserve is a product which allows the end-to-end observability of the telecommunications network, from the RAN to the core in partnership with SolarWinds. This integrated observability offering is going to help customers in the telecommunication space extract significant value.

3. “The third is an outcome-based SaaS product on energy savings for telcos. The customer in the telco operator does not need to pay anything upfront for the software they deploy. Instead, we agree on a commercial model based on the energy savings we generate for them. This model puts confidence in our products' ability to drive energy savings.”

The future of 5G

Next year, 5G acceleration will reach full pace and monetization of services will become the priority.

“We need to make sure that telco operators start to monetize the network, beyond the traffic and plumbing, and create better upper value services,” says Kumar.

He adds: “Conversations are also beginning to happen around 6G at MWC. 6G will support and enable AI capabilities and immersive experiences.”

Check out all the latest content from the HCLTech booth at MWC in Barcelona, Spain.