Starting Point: Who Are We Solving This For?

• Which role are you answering for today (so we get the right level of detail)? Options: VP Network Engineering, CTO, Head of Radio Planning, Site Ops Director, Procurement Lead, Other
• What triggered this program right now—board coverage mandate, competitor launch, capacity saturation, or something else? Options: Board commitment (coverage target), Competitor launched 5G early, Capacity saturation on key sites, Regulatory or government requirement, Cost/energy pressure, Other
• What is the concrete timeline we’re working toward (board/CEO milestone or market event)? Options: <3 months, 3–6 months, 6–12 months, 12–24 months, Flexible/No hard date
• Who is the final decision owner for RAN vendor selection in your organization? Options: CTO/Network Exec, Procurement + Network Exec, Board-level committee, Joint procurement with partners, Undecided
• Briefly describe one business objective tied to this RAN program (e.g., retain subscribers, reduce OPEX, meet coverage %, defend a revenue stream).

If We Wait, What Will It Cost Us?

• What would it mean for your business if you miss the board commitment to reach the coverage target on time? Options: Regulatory scrutiny/fines, Loss of market share, Brand/reputation damage, Delayed revenue opportunities, Minimal impact
• How quickly are capacity problems translating into customer impact (dropped calls, slowed data, churn)? Options: Already impacting churn/revenue, Noticeable in peak hours, Detected but not yet customer-visible, No impact yet
• How much of your site fleet is showing sustained >30% year-over-year traffic growth in urban clusters? Options: >50% of sites, 20–50% of sites, 5–20% of sites, <5% of sites, Unsure
• Can you give an example of a recent market event where delayed network capability affected a commercial outcome? Tell us what happened.
• How long have you been comfortable deferring large-scale RAN change before pressure became significant? Options: <6 months, 6–12 months, 1–2 years, >2 years

Where Does Your Network Hurt the Most?

• If we had to point to one technical constraint blocking your 5G momentum, what would it be? Options: Site power limits, Backhaul capacity, Vendor integration complexity, Spectrum assignment/contiguity, Radio hardware performance, OSS/BSS integration
• Which site types are creating the most pain today (pick all that apply and tell us which is worst)? Options: Urban macros, Dense urban small cells, Suburban macros, Rural macros, Rooftop sites, High-traffic venues (stadiums, malls)
• Describe where power constraints show up—are they insufficient feed, aging rectifiers, shared sites with landlord limits, or something else? Options: Insufficient mains feed, Aging rectifiers/batteries, Landlord/site-sharing restrictions, Solar/battery-dependent sites, Other
• What incumbent vendor mix is currently active across your planned trial footprint (list vendors and percent of sites if known)?
• How often do site-level integration or firmware mismatches with incumbent kit cause delays in rollouts? Options: Frequently, Sometimes, Rarely, Never, Unsure
• Point to one hot-spot cluster (city/area) you’d consider for a 50-site trial and why it matters commercially.

What’s the Real Problem Behind Your Priorities?

• Assuming energy-per-bit were halved at scale, what would that change for your capital and operational plans? Options: Significant OPEX savings, Enable more dense sites, Delay CAPEX on cooling/backups, No major change, Unsure
• How confident are you that lab benchmarks today predict field results at scale for the vendors you evaluate? Options: Very confident, Somewhat confident, Not confident, Depends on vendor
• When you consider vendor-lock risk, what keeps you awake at night: lack of interoperability, upgrade costs, single-vendor failure, or contracting terms? Options: Interoperability gaps, Upgrade/migration costs, Single vendor failure risk, Restrictive contract terms, Other
• If a vendor showed superior MIMO and spectral efficiency but slightly worse integration effort, how would you trade those outcomes? Options: Prefer performance (spectral/MIMO), Prefer lower integration effort, Need parity on both, Open to tradeoffs if ROI clear
• Tell us about a past trial that felt successful—or felt like a waste of time. What made the difference?

What Would Winning This Program Actually Look Like?

• If the 50-site trial is a clear success, what specific network outcomes would convince the board to scale (pick top 3)? Options: % population coverage achieved, Downlink throughput uplift, Uplink throughput improvement, Energy-per-bit reduction, MIMO/SE gains, Integration simplicity/OSS compatibility
• What are your numeric targets for the trial (fill any that matter: % coverage increase, Mbps uplift, % energy-per-bit reduction, user throughput percentile targets)?
• Which of these success signals will be non-negotiable for a formal go/no-go decision? Options: Throughput (DL/UL) thresholds, Energy-per-bit improvement, Latency targets, Interoperability with OSS/BSS, Operational handoff readiness, Other
• How long do you expect the 50-site trial to run before you can make a scale decision? Options: <1 month, 1–3 months, 3–6 months, 6–12 months, Depends on seasonal factors
• What statistical confidence or sample size rules do you require to accept trial results (e.g., % of sites meeting KPI, p-value, comparative baseline)? Options: % of sites meeting KPI, Comparison to baseline sites, Statistical significance required, Qualitative operational readiness, Unsure/Need guidance

Who’s Holding the Keys—and Who’s Watching?

• What decision governance will evaluate the trial: a technical steering committee, procurement panel, board review, or a combined governance body? Options: Technical steering committee, Procurement panel, Board/Executive review, Joint governance (tech + procurement), Other
• Name the stakeholders who must sign off for trial initiation and for scaling to production (roles, not people).
• How do you weight technical KPIs versus commercial terms when picking a vendor (estimate percentages)? Options: >70% technical, 50/50, >70% commercial, Case-by-case
• Who owns post-trial operations for new RAN equipment—your internal NOC/Field Ops, a managed services partner, or the vendor? Options: Internal NOC/Field Ops, Managed services partner, Vendor-managed operations, Hybrid model
• How would you describe internal appetite for a multi-vendor RAN vs. limiting to 2–3 vendors on operational grounds? Options: Prefer 1–2 vendors (simplicity), 2–3 vendors (balance), Open to multi-vendor for best tech, Undecided

What Could Break the Trial Before It Starts?

• What single risk do you think is most likely to derail a 50-site field trial (integration, permit, power, data collection, vendor SW maturity)? Options: Integration complexity, Permitting/site access, Power constraints, Incomplete instrumentation/telemetry, Vendor software maturity, Other
• How ready is your OSS/BSS to accept the telemetry and KPIs we will collect from the trial? Options: Not ready, Fully ready, Partially ready (needs mapping), Unknown/Need assessment
• Have you run cross-vendor integration tests before? If so, how long do they typically take to troubleshoot? Options: Weeks, 1–2 months, 2–4 months, Longer than 6 months, No prior experience
• What mitigation would you consider acceptable if an integration blocker showed up mid-trial (rollback/parallel testing/extended trial)? Options: Rollback to incumbent, Parallel comparison cluster, Extended trial window, On-site vendor engineering support, Other
• Who on your team will act as the escalation point for field issues during the trial (role/title)?

What Would Make a 'Yes' Irresistible?

• Beyond raw KPIs, what contractual or commercial protections would make your team comfortable choosing a new RAN vendor? Options: Trial-to-scale price protections, Interoperability exit clauses, Performance SLAs during pilot, Technology escrow/firmware access, Phased payment based on milestones
• Which support model gives you most confidence during trials: dedicated vendor field team, joint ops integration team, or remote support with guaranteed SLAs? Options: Dedicated vendor field team, Joint ops integration team, Remote with strict SLAs, Combination
• What minimum support SLA would you expect for trial incidents (response time and resolution expectations)? Options: 1–2 hour response, Same-day response, 48-hour response, 72-hour response
• How should energy be measured for trial acceptance—instantaneous power, energy-per-bit, device-level metering, or aggregated site metering? Options: Device-level metering, Aggregated site metering, Energy-per-bit calculations, Standardized third-party measurement, Other
• What reporting cadence and level of detail will stakeholders want during the trial (daily dashboards, weekly deep-dives, executive snapshots)? Options: Daily dashboards + weekly deep-dive, Weekly updates, Bi-weekly, Monthly

Practical Next Steps: Can We Run This 50‑Site Trial?

• How many of the following are ready today: site access approvals, instrumented power meters, backhaul capacity, and field engineer assignments? Options: All ready, Most ready (>75%), Some ready (25–75%), Few or none ready
• What is the earliest realistic start date for the trial given procurement and site prep lead times? Options: Within 2 weeks, 2–6 weeks, 6–12 weeks, >12 weeks
• Who will be the single point of contact from your side to coordinate trial logistics and acceptance testing (role/title)?
• What budget approval stage are you at for the trial and potential scale (approved, conditional, under review, not yet requested)? Options: Approved, Conditional approval, Under review, Not requested yet
• What would be a helpful next step from us to move toward a trial kickoff (site survey, joint readiness workshop, instrument list, commercial term sheet)? Options: Site survey, Joint readiness workshop, Instrument list & specs, Draft commercial term sheet, Other

Quick Start: Tell Us About Today

• How would you summarize the current scope of your RAN program? Options: Nationwide rollout, Regional rollout (multiple cities), Single city / metro focus, Pilot clusters only, Other
• Roughly how many active cell sites are in the scope you're evaluating?
• What target or commitment is driving this effort (board 5G coverage target, competitive pressure, capacity saturation, other)? Options: Board 5G coverage target, Competitor launch, Capacity saturation on 4G sites, Cost / energy reduction, Other
• What is your target timeline to reach the next milestone (trial start, vendor selection, rollout decision)? Options: Within 30 days, 1–3 months, 3–6 months, 6–12 months, No fixed timeline
• Who owns the final technical decision for RAN vendor selection and trials? Options: CTO, VP Network Engineering, Head of Network Ops, Procurement with technical sign-off, Other
• Which RAN vendors are currently active in your live network today? Options: Incumbent A, Incumbent B, Incumbent C, Open RAN vendor, Multiple regional vendors, Other / custom

Where It Hurts Most — Be Honest

• If you had to name the single operational problem that keeps you up at night about your RAN, what would it be?
• Where are your most severe capacity hotspots—specific cities, neighborhoods, or site types?
• How frequently do you experience saturation on macro sites in dense urban areas? Options: Weekly, Monthly, Quarterly, Rarely, Never
• How are congestion or performance degradations usually detected today? Options: Real-time network dashboards, Customer complaints/care tickets, Billing/usage anomalies, Field reports, We often learn after the fact
• When capacity problems occur, what business outcomes do you track to quantify impact (churn, ARPU, SLA breaches)?
• Tell us about a recent incident that best illustrates the operational pain—what happened and what was the root cause?

Power: The Invisible Cost You're Paying

• How much do site power constraints influence whether you deploy new RAN equipment or capacity? Options: They dictate decisions daily, They influence many decisions, Occasionally a factor, Rarely, Not at all
• What is typical available AC power per site in the clusters you're evaluating? Options: <2 kW, 2–5 kW, 5–10 kW, 10–20 kW, >20 kW, Unknown
• Which site-level power or thermal constraints exist today (limited feeders, shared rooftops, inadequate cooling, fuel logistics)?
• Do you have per-site energy metering or smart meters deployed across the candidate sites? Options: Yes—per-site smart meters, Sampling at representative sites, Rely on vendor estimates, No reliable metering
• Do you have an internal energy-per-bit or power-reduction target that will influence vendor selection? Options: Specific energy-per-bit target defined, Percentage power-reduction target defined, Qualitative energy goals only, No formal target, Unsure
• How do backup power sources (generators, batteries) change the operational feasibility or cost of trials in your environment?

Who's In The Room — And Who's Not?

• If you were forced to reduce your live RAN vendor count to two vendors tomorrow, which two would you keep and why?
• How many distinct RAN vendors are in active use across your network today? Options: 1, 2, 3, 4+, Unsure
• Who manages your OSS, NMS, and inventory systems today? Options: In-house, Managed Service Provider, Vendor-managed, Hybrid/internal+vendor
• How mature and documented are your northbound/southbound APIs and integration contracts with existing RAN vendors? Options: Well-documented with test environments, Partially documented, Mostly ad-hoc or CLI-driven, No formal APIs
• Which vendor types are you most cautious about adding to the stack (RAN, transport, core, OSS/BSS, integration partners)? Options: RAN hardware vendors, Open RAN software vendors, Transport vendors, OSS/BSS vendors, System integrators, Other
• How does switching or adding a RAN vendor typically affect training, spares inventory, and field processes?

When Integration Turns Into Debt

• What single integration failure mode would derail your rollout schedule if it happened during a trial?
• How many distinct downstream systems must be changed to onboard a new RAN (inventory, fault, performance, billing, security)? Options: 1–2, 3–4, 5–6, 7+, Unsure
• Do you maintain integration playbooks or automated test suites for vendor onboarding? Options: Comprehensive playbooks and automated tests, Partial playbooks, Mostly tribal knowledge, No playbooks/tests
• How long does end-to-end integration typically take from lab handshake to live-service readiness? Options: <1 month, 1–3 months, 3–6 months, 6–12 months, >12 months, Unsure
• Describe your most common operational symptom during integration (alarm storms, inventory mismatch, KPI drift, cascading faults).
• Who is primarily responsible for post-integration incident response and root-cause analysis? Options: Vendor NOC, Internal NOC, Shared vendor+internal, Third-party MSP

If We Could See Everything — What Would We Monitor?

• Which single metric, if it were reliable and visible, would change your deployment decisions overnight?
• Which telemetry streams do you currently collect at site level? Options: Throughput per carrier, MIMO layer / CQI metrics, PRB / resource utilization, Real-time energy consumption, Site temperature / thermal, Alarm logs / event streams, Transport link utilization, Subscriber QoE metrics, Other
• What is the typical granularity of the telemetry you rely on for operational decisions? Options: Per-minute, Per-5-min, Per-15-min, Hourly, Daily, Event-triggered
• Who across your teams has direct access to raw RAN telemetry today? Options: Network Engineering, Field Operations, Capacity Planning, Commercial/Product teams, External vendors/partners, Limited/centralized access
• What dashboards, visualizations, or alarms would you want to see during a 50-site trial to feel confident in decisions?
• Are you willing to share anonymized or aggregated telemetry with potential vendors during trials? If yes, what boundaries do you require? Options: Yes—full share under NDA, Yes—aggregated/rolled-up, Yes—selected KPIs only, No—internal use only, Need legal review

What Would Safer Trials Look Like?

• If a 50-site trial could be run with zero customer-impact risk, what specific safeguards would you insist on?
• What is your site selection priority for a representative 50-site cluster? Options: High-traffic urban macros, Dense urban small cells, Mixed urban/suburban, Rural macro edge cases, Sites with known power constraints, Other
• Do you require formal rollback and isolation procedures for trial sites, and if so, which level of automation is acceptable? Options: Automated rollback with orchestration, Documented manual rollback, Ad-hoc manual interventions, No formal rollback
• Which KPIs will you use to declare trial success or failure? Options: Downlink throughput, Uplink throughput, MIMO layer gains, Energy-per-bit, Coverage footprint, Call drop rate / handover success, Other
• Which stakeholders must sign off on trial go/no-go decisions? Options: CTO, VP Network Engineering, Network Ops Director, Field Ops Lead, Procurement/Commercial, Regulatory/Compliance
• What level of vendor presence do you require onsite during trials (full onsite staff, scheduled site visits, remote support only)? Options: Full onsite vendor engineers, Periodic onsite visits + remote, Remote support + local operator staff, Vendor NOC only

Next Moves That Reduce Risk — Fast

• If we could remove one unknown in the next 30 days that would meaningfully de-risk your program, which unknown would you pick?
• Which artifacts would most accelerate evaluation and reduce integration risk? Options: Power/site audit data, Per-site inventory and configuration, API documentation and test endpoints, Automation/playbooks, Existing performance telemetry, Other
• What is your ideal target date to begin a 50-site trial? Options: Within 30 days, 1–3 months, 3–6 months, 6–12 months, No fixed date
• Who are the decision stakeholders and what approval cadence do they follow for trials and vendor selection?
• What contractual or governance terms would make you comfortable running a time-limited trial (liability caps, SLAs, exit clauses, data ownership)? Options: Limited liability, Performance SLAs, Easy exit/rollback, Data ownership & access guarantees, Escrow or performance bonds, Other
• Are there any regulatory, permitting, or site-access constraints we should plan for immediately?

Start: What Brought Us Together Today?

• Briefly describe your role and what triggered this RAN evaluation right now.
• Which of these events best describes the immediate pressure you’re responding to? Options: Board 5G coverage mandate, Competitor launched 5G early in a key market, Capacity saturation on 4G macros, Energy / OPEX concern at scale, Regulatory or spectrum change, Other
• How confident are you that your current vendor mix will let you hit the next 12–36 month targets? Options: Very confident, Somewhat confident, Unsure, Not confident
• Who on your team will be most involved in evaluating lab benchmarks and field trials for this project? Options: CTO/VP Network Engineering, Head of Radio/Access, Network Planning, Field Operations, IT/OSS, Procurement, Other
• If there’s one outcome you want from a 50‑site trial that would convince your board, what would that be?

If You Do Nothing, How Much Worse Could It Get?

• What would it mean—for revenue, churn, or reputation—if competitor momentum or capacity limits continue unchecked?
• Which of these risks feels most immediate if you maintain your current RAN roadmap? Options: Coverage shortfall vs. mandate, Subscriber churn in dense zones, Rising site energy bills, Vendor single‑sourcing risk, Integration surprises later, Other
• How long have you been tolerating those risks (weeks, months, years)? Options: <3 months, 3–12 months, 1–3 years, >3 years
• What are the biggest non‑technical consequences you’ve felt from those risks (e.g., board pressure, missed market share, morale)?
• If a trial could remove one of those consequences within 12 months, which would you prioritize? Options: Population coverage, Peak capacity relief, Energy savings per bit, Faster time‑to‑market, Lower integration risk, Other

Where Is Your Network Actually Under Strain Right Now?

• Which network conditions are causing the most operational headaches today? Options: Backhaul congestion, Radio capacity limits, Site power constraints, Thermal limits, Incumbent vendor mix, OSS/BSS gaps, Other
• Where are your capacity hotspots—geography, site types, or hours of day—and how do they map to revenue or strategic markets?
• How many macro and small‑cell sites are currently at or above 80% resource utilization during peak? Options: <100, 100–500, 500–2,000, 2,000–10,000, >10,000, Unknown
• Tell us about site power realities: which sites struggle with AC availability, generator access, or costly diesel?
• Which incumbent vendors are present in your network and on roughly how many sites each?

What If Energy Cost Per Bit Were Your North Star?

• How much weight does your team place on energy‑per‑bit compared with throughput or spectral efficiency when selecting a RAN vendor? Options: Primary deciding metric, Very important but secondary, Equal with throughput, Less important than integration, Not considered
• What is an acceptable range of energy reduction across candidate equipment to justify a vendor change (e.g., 10%, 20%, 30%)? Options: <10%, 10–15%, 15–25%, 25–40%, >40%
• How do you currently measure energy use per site and per bit—what tools, meters, or processes are in place?
• If a vendor claimed 20% reduced energy per bit across 10,000 sites, what commercial or operational proof would you require before scaling?
• Would you consider energy savings alone sufficient to choose a vendor, or must it be accompanied by measurable throughput/MIMO gains? Options: Energy alone is sufficient, Need both energy and throughput gains, Prefer lower integration risk over energy gains, Unsure

What Is the Trial Really Trying to Decide?

• If the 50‑site trial succeeds, what specific contract or deployment decision will it unlock for you? Options: National rollout, Regional clusters, Additional vendor slot, Extended lab validation only, No immediate procurement impact, Other
• Which trial success signals would make the decision irreversible (e.g., X% throughput uplift, Y% energy savings, seamless OSS integration)?
• How will you weight lab benchmarks vs. field trial results when making a go/no‑go call? Options: Field >> Lab, Field slightly > Lab, Equal weight, Lab > Field for baseline
• What’s the minimum acceptable trial duration and traffic profile you believe is required to validate MIMO and energy claims? Options: 2 weeks steady load, 1 month varied traffic, 3 months seasonal, Depends on market/site type, Unsure
• Who needs to sign off on trial acceptance criteria—technical, commercial, and executive—and how many stakeholders does that involve?

Who’s Really Running the Decision—And How Fast Can They Move?

• If vendor selection locks you in for 7–10 years, who at the board or executive level is most sensitive to that risk? Options: CTO/VP Engineering, CFO, Head of Strategy, Board member(s), COO/Head of Ops, Other
• What internal governance or procurement steps typically add the most time before you can sign a framework agreement? Options: Security/Compliance review, Financial approval, Interoperability testing, Legal negotiations, Vendor due diligence, Other
• What is your realistic decision timeline from trial completion to framework agreement? Options: Immediate (<1 month), 1–3 months, 3–6 months, 6–12 months, Depends on results
• Which stakeholders would need targeted evidence (e.g., CFO wants TCO model, CTO wants MIMO graphs) and what form does that evidence need to take?
• How do you want vendors to present trial findings—executive summary, technical annex, live dashboards, or all of the above? Options: Executive summary, Technical annex, Live dashboards, On-site walkthrough, All of the above

Integration: Where Do You Expect Friction?

• What specific OSS/BSS or NMS systems must the trial integrate with, and which of those have historically been the hardest to connect?
• How worried are you about multi‑vendor interoperability during trial and later scale (e.g., transport, timing, OAM traces)? Options: Very worried, Concerned but manageable, Minimal concerns, Unsure
• Which integration failure modes would be showstoppers (e.g., missing counters, broken alarms, billing mismatches)?
• What level of vendor support and governance would make integration risk tolerable (SLA levels, dedicated integration team, co‑development sprints)?
• Do you have existing APIs, data models, or standardized telemetry we should plan to consume during the trial? If yes, please name them.

People & Operations: Who Will Keep This Moving?

• Who will be the day‑to‑day trial owner on your side, and do they have authority to make on‑site decisions?
• Which field teams and system owners must be scheduled and available for the 50‑site rollout (e.g., RF engineers, field install, power contractors)?
• What past rollout or trial coordination failures should we avoid repeating?
• How would you prefer we coordinate logistics—single weekly sync, shared project tracker, or embedded field liaison? Options: Weekly sync, Shared project tracker, Embedded liaison onsite, Ad hoc as needed, Other
• What change management signals (training, runbooks, escalation paths) do you expect before any scale decision?

Money, Contracts, and Safeguards: What Would Make You Comfortable?

• How important is it to you to include contractual guardrails against vendor lock and integration risk? Options: Critical, Important, Somewhat important, Not a priority
• Which commercial levers would you like to see in a framework agreement (trial credits, performance SLAs, rollback clauses, staged commitment)? Options: Trial credits, Performance SLAs, Rollback clause, Staged commitment, Penalty for missed KPIs, Other
• Would you prefer a pilot procurement path that decouples hardware purchase from long‑term software support or an all‑in single contract? Options: Decoupled hardware and support, All‑in single contract, Hybrid approach, Undecided
• What commercial proof points (price per site, TCO model, OPEX sensitivity) do you need to take to procurement/CFO?
• Are there internal procurement rules (e.g., competitive tender thresholds) we should plan around during trial-to-contract transition? Options: Yes, No, Unsure

Stretch Vision: If This Trial Is Perfect, What Comes Next?

• Paint a picture: in 24 months, what would success from this trial enable for your network and customers?
• How would operational workflows change if energy‑per‑bit improved by the target amount?
• What internal champions would emerge if the trial delivered on both performance and energy promises?
• What might you deprioritize or stop doing if this vendor became a core supplier?
• If scaling required additional CapEx this year, how would your funding preferences change (accelerate, maintain, slow down)? Options: Accelerate funding, Maintain planned CapEx, Slow down additional spend, Need economic case first

Next Steps: Small Tests, Big Signals

• Are you ready to define trial acceptance criteria now, or do you prefer a short discovery sprint to co‑define them? Options: Define now, Run 1–2 week discovery sprint, Need internal alignment first, Other
• What are the three non‑negotiable items we must confirm before any site work begins (e.g., site access, measurement method, OSS endpoints)?
• What timeline would feel ambitious but realistic to kick off the 50‑site cluster trial? Options: <4 weeks, 4–8 weeks, 8–12 weeks, >12 weeks
• Who should be on the initial kickoff invite (names, roles or teams) so we involve the right people from day one?
• Finally, what would make you say 'this vendor absolutely gets us' after an initial discovery call?

Getting to Know Your Program (quick warm-up)

• What single program objective prompted you to start this 5G/RAN refresh right now? Options: Coverage mandate (population %), Competitive pressure (market launch), Capacity saturation on key sites, Energy / OPEX reduction, Lifecycle vendor refresh, Other
• Who is ultimately accountable for the vendor selection and program delivery (title/role)? Options: CTO, VP Network Engineering, Head of RAN, CIO, Procurement Director, Other
• Roughly how many sites are in scope for the multi-year program (current estimate)? Options: 10,001–50,000, >50,000, Unsure, <500, 500–2,000, 2,001–10,000
• What is your target decision timing for vendor selection? Options: Within 1 month, 1–3 months, 3–6 months, 6–12 months, Undetermined
• Who else on your leadership team should be in our discovery conversations?

If Our Assumptions Are Wrong — Tell Us First

• What commonly-held belief about your network’s limits might be misleading and could change the business case if it’s wrong? Options: Coverage is the main blocker, Energy consumption is fixed per site, Incumbent vendors will scale performance linearly, Integration complexity is manageable, Other
• Where have you historically overestimated vendor performance or underestimated integration effort? Give a specific example.
• How confident are you in the accuracy of the data informing these beliefs (site power, traffic forecasts, incumbent performance)? Options: Very confident, Somewhat confident, Questionable, Not confident at all
• If we showed a 20% energy-per-bit improvement at 10,000 sites, how would that shift your internal priorities or board conversations?
• Which past decision (vendor, architecture, or procurement) do you now wish you could revisit? What would you change?

Where the Network Really Struggles (tell us the ugly truth)

• Which site classes or geographies silently create the most operational headaches today? Options: High-traffic urban macros, Suburban macros, Rooftop sites, Small cells / densification areas, Rural edge sites, Transit corridors
• Describe the three recurring failures or performance shortfalls you most often see during peak hours.
• How often do power constraints (site-level supply limitations) force you to limit radio features or degrade service? Options: Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Rarely, Never, Don’t know
• Which incumbent vendor behaviors or capabilities make integration or operations harder for you? Options: Opaque diagnostics, Slow feature releases, Rigid OSS interfaces, Proprietary tools, Poor field support, Other
• When integration issues occur, how long do they typically take to resolve end-to-end (field to OSS)? Options: Same day, 1–3 days, 1–2 weeks, >2 weeks, Varies widely
• Tell us about a recent outage or degradation event—what happened, who was impacted, and how did it feel for your team?

What Winning Looks Like — Metrics That Matter (and why)

• Are your current success metrics hiding trade-offs that could cost you later (for example, prioritizing throughput at the expense of energy)? Options: Yes — trade-offs are hidden, Somewhat — we know some trade-offs, No — metrics are balanced, Unsure
• Specify the concrete targets you need validated in the trial: downlink/uplink throughput (Mbps), spectral efficiency (bps/Hz), MIMO layers, and energy-per-bit (J/bit).
• Which of these KPIs would be a non-negotiable pass/fail for vendor acceptance? Options: Downlink throughput, Uplink throughput, Cell-edge capacity, Energy-per-bit, MIMO rank and reliability, OSS integration quality
• How do you currently measure energy-per-bit in the field or lab (methodology, instrumentation, averaging period)?
• What level of statistical confidence or sample size do you require before you’ll consider trial results convincing? Options: High (95%+ confidence), Moderate (80–95%), Light (anecdotal / indicative), Unsure
• Which stakeholders need to sign off on the KPI results (titles/teams)?

Trials That Convince — Design the 50‑Site Trial That Actually Decides

• In one sentence: what would make you stand up and say ‘we’ll replace X vendor after this trial’?
• Which mix of sites should the 50-site cluster include to be representative (pick up to three)? Options: High-traffic urban macro, Suburban macro, Rooftop, Small cell cluster, Transport corridor, Mixed (balanced)
• What are your minimum requirements for instrumentation and data collection during the trial (real-time counters, energy meters, RF scanners, OSS logs)? Options: Real-time traffic counters, Dedicated energy meters, Packet-level traces, OSS/BSS integration logs, User experience (QoE) sampling, Other
• How will you validate trial outcomes—automated dashboards, third-party lab analysis, or joint engineering review? Options: Automated dashboards, Independent lab validation, Joint engineering review, Executive summary only, Other
• What are your explicit go/no‑go gates after the trial (commercial, technical, operational)?
• What trial duration do you consider sufficient to capture representative performance and energy behavior? Options: 2–4 weeks, 1–3 months, 3–6 months, Depends on seasonality, Unsure

Who Holds the Keys — Decision Psychology, Roles, and Pressure Points

• If this vendor choice effectively defines your RAN for the next 7–10 years, who is most likely to push back—and why? Options: Board/Executive, Operations/Field, Network Planning, Procurement/Legal, Finance, Other
• What vendor rationalization criteria will you use (rank ordering): TCO, energy savings, spectral efficiency, integration risk, supply chain resilience, or other? Options: Total Cost of Ownership (TCO), Energy savings per site, Spectral efficiency, Integration complexity/risk, Supply chain and support, Other
• How important is avoiding vendor-lock compared to achieving peak performance, on a scale from 'must avoid' to 'performance first'? Options: Must avoid vendor-lock, Prefer diversification but pragmatic, Performance first even if lock-in risk, Undecided
• Describe any governance or escalation paths we should be aware of for technical disagreements during trials or integration.
• What commercial flexibility or contract features would reduce your perceived risk (e.g., short-term trial pricing, acceptance windows, opt-outs)? Options: Pilot pricing, Clear acceptance criteria, Termination/escape clauses, Support SLAs tied to KPIs, Staged commercial commitments, Other

What Keeps You Up at Night — Operational & Integration Failure Modes

• Which single integration failure would cause the most damage operationally—OSS mismatch, provisioning errors, field diagnostics loss, or vendor support gaps? Options: OSS/adapter mismatch, Provisioning synchronization errors, Lack of field diagnostics, Slow vendor support, Power/thermal integration issues, Other
• How mature are your OSS/BSS interfaces for integrating a new RAN vendor (native compatibility, adapters, or major rework needed)? Options: Fully compatible, Minor adapters needed, Significant rework required, We don’t have clear visibility
• Who in your operations team will be the day‑to‑day owner for trial support and later for scaled rollout?
• What SLAs and escalation times do you require from a vendor during trial and after deployment? Options: 24/7 critical support, Business hours with on-call, Remote first then field dispatch, Dedicated local engineering team, Other
• How would you prefer to validate energy savings operationally once scaled—periodic audits, continuous telemetry, or billing reconciliation? Options: Continuous telemetry, Periodic third-party audits, Billing and OPEX reconciliation, Sample-based verification, Other

Small Changes That Make Scaling Safe — Practical Next Steps

• If a single change to your trial design could halve integration surprises, what would that change be?
• Which mix of lab vs. field validation do you trust most for energy and MIMO performance? Options: Lab first, then short field, Parallel lab+field, Field-first (real traffic), Depend on per-site class, Undecided
• Who should be part of an initial 30–60 day technical onboarding workshop to accelerate trial readiness? Options: Vendor system engineers, Customer RAN engineers, OSS integration leads, Field operations leads, Procurement/legal observer, Other
• Realistically, how soon could you provide site access and the necessary permissions to start a 50-site trial? Options: Immediately, Within 1 month, 1–3 months, 3–6 months, Longer
• What would a successful next meeting look like to you—what decisions or artifacts should we leave with? Options: Technical scope and site list, Data access agreements, Initial KPI targets, Trial schedule and owners, All of the above
• Any concerns or sensitivities we haven’t touched on that would change how we approach discovery with your team?