5G-An opportunity for users and industry

Umlaut, now part of Accenture, is part of the company’s acquisition strategy to build a strong global capability practice, offering cross-industry, end-to-end advisory and engineering services to a full spectrum of clients.

Please elucidate on umlaut’s role in the telecom industry.
With the acquisition by Accenture, the combined force offers deep engineering capabilities in digital technologies like 5G networks, cloud, and artificial intelligence will help companies transform how they design, engineer and manufacture their products, as well as embed sustainability. umlaut’s industry-leading engineers and consultants across 17 countries are now part of Accenture’s Industry X services team, expanding Accenture’s capabilities in a range of industries, including automotive, aerospace & defense, telecommunications, energy and utilities.

In the telecommunications sector we now provide customers with modern network services and solutions for designing, managing, monitoring, testing, and optimizing global telecommunication infrastructure. We ensure its security and identify its weaknesses, while always being at the forefront of new technologies. This is an exciting time since Accenture also just launched a new practice called Accenture Cloud First Networks to bring together all the 5G / Network focused acquisitions such as AFD.Tech, Arca and many more, under the thesis that digital transformation requires end to end network transformation.

umlaut is most known for its international network benchmarking capabilities that offer industry transparency and score network quality and performance. And, as part of Accenture, we now provide a full scope of technical and management consulting services, like network planning and optimization, security services, device testing, and acceptance services.

How are umlaut’s benchmarking services and solutions driving the world’s telecom infrastructure advancement?
We evaluate the digital infrastructures worldwide – such as mobile and fixed networks – and make them usable. Today, we measure and evaluate the telecommunications networks in 120 countries and, as part of Accenture, this scope will grow. Our benchmarks are regarded as the de facto industry standard, with results that are comparable across the countries. Network operators consider them to be the most relevant assessment of their network’s performance and use them to enhance strategic decisions for optimization, deployment, and offering development. With technology’s ongoing evolution – the current revolution – it is critical to constantly adjust testing methodology and scoring models to the progressing technical development. umlaut, and now Accenture methodology, takes into account growing customer expectations, expanding data volumes and rising data speeds by raising the requirements and thresholds of the tests each year.

What in your opinion is the key to keeping up with the high demand for network coverage and connectivity performance?
We think that the key to meeting the high demand is agility and constant improvement where the customer expectations lie. A deep love for everything technical unites us – and a passion for making, doing, and creating things. We like to try things out and just see what happens. Also, we believe that knowledge transfer is the key to success. With the knowledge transfer that comes from our crowd-based benchmark solution, we can monitor the developments in network coverage and connectivity in real time and provide insights on consumer experience worldwide. One key for keeping up with the high demand is the continuous investments into the network infrastructure, for both mission critical operations and new use case offerings. As a part of Accenture, we’re positioned to help our clients to find the best, full-scope benefit for their investments into network infrastructure.

With Accenture, how do you support mobile operators to succeed in network transformation?
With Accenture’s world view, we approach the Communications industry in two ways: as part of a global economic engine where the industry, and its networks, are a critical backbone for new growth and innovation, and as an industry where its legacy network is its crown jewel. We see industries around the world vying for new talent to help them keep up with the pace of technology and embracing ambitious sustainability goals. One could interpret this as a challenge made for the communications industry, and their networks. Purpose-built networks, operating in the cloud, featuring compelling machine learning and intelligence-based opportunities that come with it, is a clear path forward. We ask our clients, what do you envision your network – and by extension, your business – doing? Whether they prioritize five-nines, ambitions to set the pace for achieving sustainability goals, or to be metaverse ready, Accenture is armed to meet that vision, those goals and those ambitions with end-to-end offerings designed for B2C, SMB, and Large Enterprise growth. We design, manage and operate modern, cloud-enabled communications and enterprise networks. And, where it makes sense, we also advise clients on network structural separation strategies.

Please elaborate on the changing trends in the telecom industry over the next couple of years.
5G and upcoming standards will drive topics like Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI), and mobile edge computing. In broad strokes, we see three trends emerging: the need for business reinvention (to the point of total enterprise reinvention), meeting evolving customer expectations, and staying at the bleeding edge of the technology revolution. Telecommunications will continue to be a driver for innovation in other industries, if communications service providers train their focus on these growth opportunities. Accenture drives exciting near-future vision that form the basis for topics from smart home and work to e-mobility or intelligent networks. 5G integration and the technologies based on it will be a main component of our strategy. We will increasingly focus on future-oriented topics, such as data analytics, AI-supported analyses, and next-generation network intelligence. Open RAN (O-RAN) will be a major topic for network operators when it comes to network technology. Traditionally, mobile network technology is created by very specialized technology players, who have proprietary interfaces between the network elements. Open interfaces create competition, mainly on two angles. One is pricing, which is an important aspect for a mobile network operator. The other angle is innovation, with similar importance. Both components are relevant factors. O-RAN has proven that it can be an alternative to traditional network vendors, and Accenture is proud to be a founding member of TM Forum’s Open Digital Architecture initiative.

Please elaborate on Accenture´s plans and strategy in the telecom segment for 2022-23.
In 2022, 5G has become mature in most countries all over the world and the fixed broadband has become more and more relevant. Moreover, as connectivity is exceeding the realm of the internet and including more and more everyday objects and devices by the day, digitization is more than just digitizing sensors and machines. Network transformation in conventional mobile, fiber, fixed networks, and cloud infrastructure will become a clear focus area in 2023. We see five paths to growth emerging: networks, customers, SMB, enterprise, and how to envision an industry restructured for a new way of working. For example, O-RAN, which we already discussed. O-RAN enablement will be one of the key aspects. The fiber-transformation accelerates digital transformation, whilst investing billions in the future of technology and connectivity.

We have a variety of skills, which we deliver end-to-end, for example, our IoT capabilities range from sensor integration to data processing and from backend to frontend; our fields of action include logistics, smart cities, and the automotive and aviation industries, amongst others. We additionally run our own IoT lab as an extra playground for ideation and experimentation.

With new standards being created and network cloudification conversing data and applications in relation to cloud computing, another big topic for 2022 will be security, especially network security. Overall, security is essential for further development of wireless technologies and is becoming a major topic for the industry. More connectivity across all industries means growing cyber-security challenges. Driven by individual motivations, attacks are targeting mainly sensitive data and critical services, which not only lead to a financial and reputation loss, but also result in disasters due to unavailability of critical infrastructures. The sheer variety of attacks needs to be detected and mitigated effectively. Organizations need to shift from yesteryear’s “Trust but verify” to a more adaptive “Never trust, always verify” mindset. With this approach, you limit access to data and resources by evaluating users, applications and devices on a need-to-know basis. In this new model, identity is the new perimeter. At umlaut, part of Accenture we are eager to consult with our customers to achieve the best possible security posture by implementing tailored measures and execute thorough security testing to prepare against such cyber-attacks. Our cross-industry and public sector experience are the foundation for our best practice knowledge that we can leverage to consult and prepare our customers effectively and in an efficient way.