How smart spaces can help monetize 5G and PON through B2B(2X) and partner ecosystems

Communications service providers (CSPs) have invested heavily in connectivity over the past decades, but most have yet to truly capitalize on the value-added services enabled by these investments. With the introduction of 5G and network slicing capabilities, however, CSPs are in a far greater position to provide new services beyond connectivity, which create strong ROI and improve their market standing. This is the motivation for a new ‘smart spaces’ concept within the industry, which examines how 5G network slicing and passive optical networks (PON) can be used most effectively with edge computing to deliver cloud-like speed for next-generation services – while ensuring partnerships enable rapid onboarding, simple delivery, and multi-vendor business platforms to ensure monetization for all stakeholders and investors.

The Edge smart spaces beyond 5G Catalyst seeks to address this by demonstrating how CSPs can commercialize and deliver digital solutions that solve current problems for their corporate clients, regardless of which market segment they belong to. In so doing, CSPs aim to use this Catalyst as a basis to create myriad high-speed, zero-touch B2B(2X) ecosystems. To test and prove the concept, the Catalyst team selected an airport as the host location for implementing a smart space – an environment where there are always strong demands on the network and, as such, an ideal setting to develop secure, digital commercial ecosystems for outstanding customer experiences that can be deployed quicky and easily.

In this setting the Catalyst piloted ‘smart duty free’, in which a retail franchise provided its customers with an automated shopping experience, through the implementation of a ‘grab and go’ solution. The Catalyst tested new commercial models, extending the traditional B2B model to a B2B(2X) model with several business interactions between the CSP, partners and customers in a smart space scenario. The results were impressive, demonstrating in this phase that airports – as a highly demanding environment – are apt to transform the ways in which new services come to market and make use of these advanced network technologies.

Key to the success of smart spaces is the ease with which each partner can onboard, deploy, manage and manage their solutions via the CSP platform. Upon choosing a suitable bundle that suits their needs, participating organizations should be able to easily deploy products. Their offer includes not only the connectivity requirements - bandwidth for video streaming, access to core business systems for supply chain and inventory management, customer profiling and security - but includes the platform capabilities for automated deployment and monetization. Through the platform, offers can be adjusted and tuned at any time, with high levels of automation, incorporating analytics and results from marketing and sales campaigns. In this way, the ecosystem develops its own momentum as a dynamic, constantly evolving, shared environment.

All vendors are capable of profiting from access to smart spaces, while the CSPs involved raise margins through delivering added value services and not just pure connectivity. Like airports, other markets and environments will reap the benefits of connectivity and smart spaces in their own unique way. By building a collaborative ecosystem of partners, it is possible to create vibrant, dynamic, and highly profitable market for retail franchises and a growing number of next generation services within the smart space. As Jose Luis Garcia, B2B IT Enterprise Architect at Telefónica explains, “the most important direct benefits of this will be the delivery of frictionless partner onboarding – and the provision of a ‘seller experience’ which features an expanded product portfolio to create and monetize next generation 5G services.” The array of interested parties must surely be broad and growing as we head further into the 5G era.