Mazin Gilbert, VP Advanced Technology and Systems, AT&T Labs
Open source is a fundamental part of AT&T’s product strategy, having made the decision several years ago to move to being a software company. This leads to disaggregation and the need to get there fast, with the best possible solutions, whilst ensuring interoperability from hundreds of vendors and suppliers. Having announced an initial 12 markets for 5G deployment last year, AT&T is now preparing for a nationwide rollout, which requires a move from around 80,000 macro cells today to hundreds of thousands of new 5G-enabled small cells. This has to be scaled cost-effectively and efficiently, and the telco believes there is no way of doing that without adopting open source. Hence the formation of the O-RAN Alliance, to encourage the ecosystem to develop disaggregated 5G radio access network products.
Filmed at ONS North America 2019, San Jose, United States
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