Last week, The Fast Mode spoke to Natasha Tamaskar, VP & Head of Business Strategy & Global Marketing at Radisys in a brief interview on
How has the last 18 months panned out, and what are your expectations for MWC 2021?
The last 18 months have yielded a different, but successful year for Radisys. While the pandemic changed the way we live, learn and work, the importance of connectivity became paramount and the telecom industry remails critical. Radisys took the challenges of the pandemic and used them as a springboard for innovation, collaboration and leadership in the ecosystem. Our team understands that as we emerge from a year of uncertainty, the industry and consumers are relying on service providers and the vendor community to keep momentum for delivering mobile connectivity and broadband access for all.
Open RAN continued to gain traction over the last year as service providers explored new open architectures to build their 5G networks. The Open RAN Policy Coalition formed in May 2020 and we joined its efforts to educate policymakers and the global industry about the benefits of Open RAN. Radisys continued to hold leadership roles within several industry organizations, including the Small Cell Forum where we contributed to the successful launch of its next-generation FAPI specifications that are enabling faster time to market for Open RAN solutions.
Radisys continued to deliver new solutions that enable service providers and enterprises to deliver new services. We launched our Engage Virtual Assistant (EVA), the world’s first AI-powered video, voice and text enabled bot. At the beginning of the pandemic, we saw an increased need for customer service innovation as wait times were untenable. EVA empowers customer support, sales and marketing teams to significantly enhance the customer experience by delivering greater personalization that drives customer acquisition, retention, and satisfaction with the cost savings of automation.
For broadband service providers, we introduced our Connect Open Broadband, a carrier-grade, Tier 1 network-hardened, scalable and secure software-defined Passive Optical Network (PON) distribution based on open standards and web-scale architecture to drive rapid innovation and economies of scale. We recently followed this announcement of an open broadband solutions with the unveiling of our Reach Smart Home solution which enables broadband service providers to offer their customers safety and security in their home by connecting all smart appliances, sensors and controllers through an open device ecosystem, while simultaneously managing costs and streamlining operations.
MWC 2021 was different than previous MWCs, it still provided an opportunity for the industry to connect, learn and showcase the newest solutions. While Radisys opted to participate virtually this year, we are proud to participate. This event not only demonstrated the perseverance of the telecom industry, but it also celebrated our industry’s commitment to driving innovation and expanding the telecoms ecosystem.
