System integration (SI) is set to be a growth opportunity in the telecom space as operators continue to struggle with tying together multiple cloud-focused vendors into their 5G deployment plans.

Telecom operators were the main push toward cloud-based architectures, looking to disrupt what had been a strict infrastructure model tied to a handful of big-name legacy vendors. This started in earnest with AT&T’s Domain 2.0 initiative in 2013.

However, that push has now unleashed a bevy of new vendors looking to tap into the hundreds of billions of dollars telecom operators spend on capex each year. And getting all of those pieces to work in harmony in support of complex 5G telecom networks is proving to be a challenge.

Dish Network and Rakuten have been prominent leaders in the cloud-based open architecture space, highlighting that the model can indeed work to support a commercial 5G service, but also the challenges in using this model. Both operators were forced to delay the commercial launch of services due to integration issues that impacted network performance.

“We’re six months behind where we thought we’d be, and it’s my fault. We just didn’t maybe anticipate that we would have to do as much on the technical side,” Dish chair and co-founder Charlie Ergen said during a company earnings call earlier this year. “Ultimately, we found that we had to become the system integrator. It wasn’t a role that we thought we were going to take on. But with all the vendors, somebody’s got to be the middleman between them and be the glue that holds them together. We probably squandered some time, but that’s my fault.”

Andrew De La Torre, group VP of technology at Oracle Communications, explained that one challenge has been the market's current lack of a standard way to deploy cloud-based open architectures. This has forced each deployment to basically be a custom job.

“Every operator we’re working with so far is choosing to build almost a unique cloud environment to them and that is creating a lot of complexity because the initial deployments are all learning experiences because they’re all unique,” De La Torre said in an interview with SDxCentral. “And I do think one of the things that we could do better as an industry and as equipment providers … is to try and drive a bit more uniformity in in that space and try and get some more standardized models to help operators with their deployments.”

Adam Koeppe, SVP of technology and planning at Verizon, explained that the carrier has indeed needed to stay on top of interoperability challenges, adding that it’s very similar to legacy deployment models.

“As the integrator, we certainly have to pay attention to the interoperability of that software on our hardware,” Koeppe said. “We play very specific attention obviously to parts of the network where there may be a transition between two suppliers, and that's not new. Literally from the beginning of the wireless network there's been multiple suppliers in the mix. So that coordination and integration interoperability is not much different than it has been in the past and is something we obviously spend a lot of time on.”

AT&T, which initiated this revolution, did much of the heavy lifting, but eventually moved most of its back-office 5G work to Microsoft.

Vendors are taking notice. NEC earlier this year acquired Ireland-based Aspire Technology, which was founded by former Ericsson engineers in 2010, and provides consulting and network integration services to operators, with a focus on open RAN products.

“This is not easy stuff,” Rahul Chandra, CEO and President of NEC’s Blue Danube Systems, said in an interview with SDxCentral. “There’s a lot of moving parts and it’s not something that is one and done. You have to maintain and manage the lifecycle of these parts.”

Chandra thinks operators will look toward a systems integrator to help manage their open RAN deployments. “There’s certainly value in having an SI, especially somebody who is part of the stack,” he said.

Others, like the large hyperscalers, are increasingly expanding their SI services to provide integration support. A recent report from Grand View Research predicts the 5G SI market will surge from $9 billion this year to more than $62 billion by 2030. It named IBM, Microsoft, and Cisco as significant players in the North America market.