 Live from Silicon Valley, it's theCUBE. Covering Mobile World Congress 2017, brought to you by Intel. Okay, welcome back everyone. We're here live in Palo Alto for special Mobile World Congress 2017 coverage. Mobile World Congress is happening in Barcelona, Spain and we are covering it here in Palo Alto and covering all the action as day two of Mobile World Congress winds down. We have reporters, analysts in the field in Barcelona calling in. We have Peter Jaric coming up soon, calling in. We've had Scott Rainovich, analysts called in earlier. We have reports. Go to siliconangle.com for all the action. Go to cube365.net slash MWC17. That is our new Cube365 software, a digital hub to aggregate all the top stories, all the signal from the noise at Mobile World Congress and that site is sponsored by Intel. I want to thank Intel for allowing us to do 30 great interviews here in studio as well as a variety of great content that we're getting in from phone ins and friends on the ground in Barcelona to get you all the top stories. Of course, we'll bring the commentary and analysis here inside the Cube. I had a chance to talk to Intel at 1.30 this morning in California time, early morning, Tuesday time here, Tuesday time in Barcelona. I had a chance to talk with Sandra Rivera who's the corporate vice president, general manager of Intel's network platforms group. She is in charge of the Intel technology group that brings the end-to-end transformation, really getting 5G ready, part of the Intel Brain Trust and the leader and really taking the world by storm, 5G, obviously the top story and underneath the hood of 5G is the network transformation. I had a chance to ask her some very pointed questions like is 5G ready for prime time and what's it going to take to change the game to bring a new business model to power all the new use cases like autonomous vehicles, smart cities, a new kind of media and entertainment landscape as well as smart homes and smart businesses. So let's hear what Sandra had to say and here's my interview from this morning in Barcelona. Well, I would certainly say it's revolution, not evolution. If you look at all the previous generations of radio technology, 2G, 3G, 4G, it was largely driven by connecting people to other people and of course the voice era was 2G and 3G became the app revolution and us connecting with our loved ones over social media and kind of all of the new capabilities that we found on the internet. 4G then became about more capacity and coverage and faster uploaded download speeds with all of the against social media and video and media processing but 5G is fundamentally different because it really brings together the computing and communications paradigm. It is truly that converges the both computing and communication and so in addition to the billions of people that we've been connecting in all the other generations of radio technologies, we are now connecting tens of billions of things in that era of 5G and a lot of what we're seeing here on the ground is just some of those use cases that are starting to emerge in terms of once you really convert computing and communication, what is possible to do? The big conversation that we've been having yesterday on theCUBE was the confluence between consumer technology and enterprise technology from a business model standpoint. We hear that we're digital transformation, that's the business model for pretty much the global business landscape but really there's a lot of stuff going on under the hood around you guys are calling network transformation. Your CEO was talking unfortunately before the show started about this end-to-end architecture. So when we talk about end-to-end, we do talk about every point of either accessing or delivering information as again either between people or between things. So it's from the jump on point if you will on the network and the access layer and so of course it's all the new radio technologies to the edge of the network where a lot of the decision points in the data analytics live and exist to the core of the network which again is the workforce of where things are routed and where traffic is feared and what is the different types of traffic that you're trying to get from the source to the endpoint and then of course back into the data center and the cloud which is the place where most of the content is either originated or stored or served up. So when we talk about end-to-end we do talk about every point in that continuum and the need to have programmable, intelligent, computing and communications capability which is very, very different from what we've had historically from a network infrastructure perspective. So network transformation is all about embracing server-based technologies and the volume economics benefits that that brings virtualization technology and the fact that you can pool access and use them across many different users and use cases and of course cloud as well as technology and the business model and the idea that you can lease an asset and afford to lease almost unlimited compute capability and then release it when you're done. So that end-to-end view and that transformation of the underlying infrastructure is really what we talk about when we talk about network transformation and because 5G requires that programmable computing capability all across that continuum and in particular being close and closer to those end points whether they're autonomous cars or they're drones, they're robots or of course the things that we're quite familiar with in terms of tablets and laptops and smartphones that that is really what we are now enabling under that umbrella of network transformation and 5G is accelerating. And for the folks watching and listening we had a great interview with Lynn Compawen did a drill down on NFV and some of the school tech behind that. On the business model, kind of the landscape question you mentioned drones, certainly hot. People can look at drones, they see the autonomous vehicles. This is an environment with these new applications and use cases are emerging. So there always seems to be the challenge and we had an expert discussion this morning in the queue here in Palo Alto around the trade-off between bandwidth and true mobility and sometimes there is some trade-offs and not all one technology or partner will win it and you guys are a big part of that. What is your view and Intel's view on the kinds of robust diverse technologies that are needed to balance the many use cases and at the same time create an open ecosystem around fostering this new future growth which seems to be a big wave we haven't seen since the iPhone in 2007. This is a really game changer. How do you guys view this multitude of technologies and then diverse ecosystem and how do you guys foster that? As Intel, we are a technology innovator and a technology leader and of course that clock never stands still, right? So you need to continue to innovate on the technology front and bring out new capabilities and in particular as that computing and communications world come together we know that we need to integrate more of the network and wireless IP into the standard roadmap of processors and capabilities that we bring to the market both in hardware and software ingredients. But as we do that, we are trying to protect the software investments that the developers make in bringing new and emerging applications to market. So while we have a four huge CPU assets within Intel we also have FPGA assets for use cases that would involve changing algorithms whether they're security algorithms that are deployed differently in different parts of the world, different countries or of course artificial intelligence which is again in the emerging field with new algorithms and new computational requirements or on the radio side where the 5G wireless standards are going to be taking root and solidifying over the next several years and continue to evolve you wanna have that programmability so the FPGA assets coming to play. And then we leverage that even further with some of the ASIC competency that we have where you really do work in a hardened piece of silicon on the ability to run very, very fast calculations many, many times over and to do it in as efficient possible way both from a cost and a power perspective. But all of that underlying hardware and silicon architecture choice really needs to be served up to a broad ecosystem through a software framework that is consistent and deterministic and where you have a very robust tool chain which is really what Intel invests in. So we invest in a robust and comprehensive software tools and frameworks so that we can tap into the very broad and application developer ecosystem that exists in the world. And that's how we see the capabilities that we bring to market tapping into our technology innovation in silicon and software ingredients but then tapping into again something that we believe deeply in which is a broad ecosystem then the more market participation you have the faster that innovation curve that you can drive. Rising tide floats all boats. I love that saying I think that seems to be the case here. Sandra, I wanna get your thoughts on the business model telcos and the industry. People know Mobile World Congress is like the big show but it's also where everyone who's anyone in the business goes there's a lot of business conversation. I'm sure you're backed up between meeting and meeting after meeting because you got a lot of customers there. Take us through some of the hallway conversations you're having or specific business conversations that you're meeting with customers. What's the buzz in the hallways and what specific conversations are you having with the customers around commercializing, not just accelerating but commercializing the business models that are gonna emerge from these new use cases. Yeah, well, actually that's a great question because I've been coming to Mobile World Congress for many, many years and a lot of the network transformation discussions and a lot of the discussions even around NFB and SDN in years past had been rooted in the desire to try to achieve a lower cost point, a total cost of operation that was lower when you move from fixed function purpose built can't reprogram, reprovision the hardware to do anything other than what it was originally designed to do even though the act of utilization on that investment was very low, 20%, maybe 30% of that. So it was this desire to move to volume economics of server-based technology and the benefits of virtualization and pooling. So it started in a cost optimization type of conversation but then that moved in the last year certainly with 5G into much more, well, how do we innovate services faster? How do we bring new capabilities to market and how do we really help to grow the top line not just manage our cost? And I think that's what you're seeing at this event this year is the excitement around virtual reality and augmented reality, the excitement around a smart home and all the capabilities that you'll have in your appliances and in your infrastructure in your own home and how you run your household seeing all of the innovations that we've got in smart cities so smart lighting, smart water systems, smart meters and smart parking. Another thing that you're seeing here in terms of a set of use cases that we're enabling of course, no trade show event that you're talking about in terms of new use cases and new experiences is a complete without an autonomous car. So we have a beautiful BMW seven series autonomous vehicle that we're showcasing here but again, this is part of what we're enabling in terms of new use cases when you have virtually unlimited compute being brought to the edge of the network with all new radio technologies to address a lot of that bandwidth, a lot of that latency, high sensitive type of ultra reliable capability that we need for an autonomous car. So what you're seeing is smart cities and virtual reality and autonomous driving and smart home and how all of the underlying technologies make that possible. And from a business perspective, all the new services are clearly what the communication service providers are trying to deliver to the market. And trying to do it in a way that embraces cloud of business models, but also working with all of the enterprises and the traditional business whether it's an automotive industry or whether it's an industrial automation industry or even all the appliances that go into your home. All these traditional businesses really disrupting themselves to embrace technology and to bring many more capabilities that again had never been possible before. Yeah, the car really brings this data center to the edge in full light for the consumer. It's a moving data center, needs to talk to a base station, needs to talk to the network. And really this is the new normal. You see, you know, Alexa in the home and the voice activation, all the coolness going on there. And a lot of folks will have criticized the telcos in the past for being very good at turning on subscribers and billing them as their core competency. But now with IoT, you have literally, provisioning that's happening so fast and so dynamic, you have literally anything with a SIM card is now on the network. This kind of changes the notion of a subscriber. So moving from that bill to operational in this new thousands of things and people on the network, it's not as clean as it was in the old days. Are the telcos on this, do they get this concept? I mean, this changes the requirements for the network to be more dynamic and manage the technologies. It's a fundamental transformation that they're going through rooted in an urgent business problem that they have, which is that the more data that is created and consumed, the more they have to build out capacity, but they have to do that in an affordable way and they can't do it when they're provisioning new services and new capabilities in hardware and particularly in hardware that only does what it was originally intended to do. And they're now moving to a model that is software-defined where you are able to innovate and provision and deploy at the speed of software, not being anchored in hardware. But they really are absolutely welcoming that opportunity, again, to bring those new services and capabilities to market when they can create a network infrastructure that becomes a platform of innovation where they can attract developers to imagine new use cases and applications with capabilities that they themselves haven't had the DNA to do, but they have such unique assets. They have spectrum. They have contextual information about network bandwidth and conditions. They have customer profile information. They have a building relationship. They have location. They need security too, as well. They have security and reliability and all of those assets, they can tap into that and serve that up. And again, a platform upon which innovation can happen, then that's really their end game. So while, to your point, they may have been criticized as being kind of slow-moving, we really do see them embracing fully this idea that in order to grow their top line in order to innovate faster in terms of services that embracing, again, this fundamental different architectural model of computing and communications, converging and server-based cloud-based technologies is the way of the future. And 5G just puts a nice ball on it, right? Because it just makes everything go faster given that all these new use cases that we're looking to enable. Hey, John, you probably have only one question left. So key money question if you want. Great. My final question, Cedric, my final question is what's the bumper sticker this year for Mobile World Congress? If you had to put the bumper sticker on the car, what would it say this year to encapsulate Mobile World Congress? So for me, 5G starts today because in order to be ready for all those drones and robots and autonomous cars and all of those immersive experiences in your living room, you really have to transform the network infrastructure today. And that composability of the network infrastructure or the ability to capture a slice of the network and optimize it in real time for your use case, all of that requires programmable, scalable, flexible computing that is secure, that's reliable, and that embraces cloud architectures and cloud business models. And so that is happening today to get ready for 2018, 2019, 2020 when you see many more of those endpoints, those end devices and those use cases come to be realized, you need to get started today. So 5G is absolutely on its way and we're very, very excited to be a key enabler of that vision. Sandra Rivera, thanks so much. Corporate Vice President General Manager and Network Platforms Group at Intel, really bringing the end-to-end technology, enabling communication service providers to take their networks to the next level, getting ready for 3G, 5G and bringing the performance to the edge of the network. Thanks for taking the time on theCUBE, calling in from Barcelona. Really appreciate it. Have a great day. Thanks, John.