The telecommunications industry is on the brink of a transformative era fueled by exponential growth in mobile data traffic. To navigate this data deluge successfully, it’s imperative to integrate artificial intelligence. With the rollout of 5G and the anticipation of 6G technology, AI is set to revolutionize telecommunications. Telcos must grasp the game-changing synergies between connectivity and AI. Artificial intelligence will fundamentally reshape industry dynamics and also unlock new horizons of possibility for the enterprises that leverage it to its fullest.
How to Leverage the power of AI in 5G Networks
The advent of 5G has introduced a complex network landscape. This network landscape now encompasses millions of interconnected devices. It offers low-latency data transfer along with new capabilities such as network slicing, connected intelligent edge solutions, cognitive networks, ORAN, vRAN, and private networks. As communications service providers (CSPs) transition away from traditional 4G processes to incorporate these new and innovative capabilities, advanced analytics platforms powered by AI are becoming indispensable.
CSPs can leverage the power of AI to supercharge their 5G networks across several dimensions:
- Massive IoT device and data management: 5G is the primary driver in creating an interconnected tech ecosystem. Devices such as sensors, mobile phones, drones, and many others used on 5G networks will expand across industries to pioneer a massive IoT world generating data. CSPs, being at the center of the 5G ecosystem, can leverage AI for actionable insights from these devices, enhancing data management operations. With AI, data from mobile IoT devices help companies learn more about users’ lifestyles, hobbies, and activity preferences, allowing CSPs to deliver personalized engagements.
- Network planning and optimization: CSPs need to plan and optimize their networks to cater to higher traffic demands and varied latency requirements in 5G networks. AI can play a crucial role in providing granular insights about the network and user experiences. It can give real-time visibility of customer engagements, helping CSPs quickly adapt to changing network conditions and maximize performance while reducing field visit efforts for infrastructure maintenance. AI inspection drones can gather valuable information on field equipment functionality, and it’s all made possible with real-time network performance insights.
- Intelligent network management: AI can enable a simplified, streamlined way to manage the complexities of a 5G network, allowing CSPs to move from a reactive to a proactive approach. It offers predictive maintenance and recovery services, resolving issues at faster rates by quickly detecting and diagnosing them, thus moving toward a self-healing network. AI-enabled chatbots can report issues and automatically fix network problems in real time. For example, in the case of a CSP network outage, an AI-based network management solution can access the historical data and make parameter changes like adjusting the reference power of a cell site, antenna tilt, and many others.
- Zero-touch automation: CSPs are making their 5G networks programmable and flexible, with on-demand services being activated and delivered in almost no time. The lifecycle processes behind these services are automated through what’s known as zero-touch automation. AI is the foundation of this automation in 5G, making decisions while a new service gets activated and an old one gets shut down. When implemented in an automation platform, AI can autonomously pinpoint network issues, correlate them with previous actions, and then automatically execute an action, moving towards autonomous remediation.
- Enhanced customer experiences: A CSP can distinguish its business from the competition by providing compelling experiences to its customers. A factor in helping achieve this is using AI-enabled chatbots or automated responses during customer support engagements to quickly resolve customer queries, allowing round-the-clock service and reducing calls to call centers. Functionality like sentiment analysis determines a user’s emotion from textual and voice data helping the chatbot drive the flow of conversations. Many other examples can prove how AI leads to enhanced customer experiences and magnifies the probability of customer retention.
- New revenue streams: AI provides extensive customer insights based on customer data, leading to more personalizing services. With a more precise understanding of customers’ behavior and interests, CSPs can recommend the right products, services, and plans, generating new revenue opportunities. For example, AI-powered robots and intelligent machines, enabled by the low-latency and high-bandwidth capabilities of 5G, can enhance the customer experience in CSP retail sector, thus increasing efficiency.
- Carbon footprint reduction: Reducing carbon emissions is a top priority for most CSPs. AI can make significant contributions to energy-saving efforts. An AI solution can predict real-time data traffic patterns in a 5G network and activate sleep periods when necessary. Such dynamic management of network resources can reduce overall power consumption. As mentioned previously, AI-based drones can be used for site surveys, reducing the need for physical field visits and thus saving energy.
Unlocking the Next Frontier
As we enter the 6G era, AI will be the driving force behind numerous connectivity-driven industry transformations. The convergence of the physical and digital worlds is fast approaching. AI-native networks will push industries towards smarter and more efficient operations. In the context of manufacturing, for example, telecoms will play a vital role in enabling an entire landscape of “factory of the future” capabilities.
By embracing AI-driven decision-making and leveraging the anticipated advancements in 6G, CSPs can prepare for the increasing demands of customers, explore new business opportunities, enhance their sustainability efforts, and position themselves as industry leaders. Working alongside trusted engineering partners with deep AI capabilities will pave the way forward. The resulting AI strategies will enable CSPs to transform their networks, solidify the 5G revolution, and advance toward the 6G horizon.
