Carriers Must Find Their Own Way on AI in the RAN

Carriers can't rely on technology vendors or other companies to find a path forward on AI, Danielle Rios, acting CEO of software company Totogi, said Tuesday during a TelecomTV forum on the AI-native telco. Vendors themselves are still figuring out AI, Rios said. Other speakers agreed that companies must collaborate to make AI in telecom a success.

“My message to telcos is, sadly, you’re going to have to navigate AI yourself,” Rios said: “Everyone is learning how to surf this wave. We’re all novices. And it’s still very early days.”

There are no AI best practices yet, Rios argued. AI remains the “jagged edge of technology” with developments occurring almost daily, she said. Rios predicted that between better chips and models, AI will see a 1,000-fold improvement in the next five years. AI will influence nearly every job at a carrier, Rios added.

As such, carriers can’t wait for the “dust to settle” before they invest in AI, Rios said. “Start with the easy stuff now -- start to surf the baby waves.”

Carriers need a “clear business case” for every AI project they tackle, said Patrick Kelly, principal analyst at Appledore Research. The technology has generated a lot of “excitement,” he said, “but you have to align your business problem with the solution that you’re going to develop.”

Vendors are starting to offer AI-based tech for customer care, billing and managing employees in the field, Kelly said. However, for AI success, it's vital that carriers prioritize data governance and quality, he warned. “You have to break data silos -- if the data isn’t accessible, the models just aren’t going to work when you train them.”

Similar to Rios, Manish Singh, CTO of Dell Technologies’ Telecom Systems Business, said, “It’s urgent to get started” on AI. “The good news” is that some carriers “are actively already working on AI,” Singh said. Telcos are considering use cases, and experimenting with AI, he said. In a few instances, they have already started limited deployments.

By now, every telco should have a “big picture” view of their AI plans, said Rahul Atri, president of the Operations Support Systems Business Unit at Rakuten Symphony. “The technology will evolve,” he said: “New devices are coming. New ways of interacting with the systems are coming.”

Carriers should work “with the broad ecosystem,” Singh said, since they are “sitting on a priceless opportunity” to bring AI to the edge of their networks, where a lot of the data is created.

AI partnerships are a “must,” Atri said. “We don’t have a choice,” he said: “We need to form the alliances and partnerships and build an ecosystem.”

The AI RAN Alliance was established in February to drive openness and speed innovation when using AI in radio access networks, said Chair Alex Jinsung Choi. Other industry organizations are focused on specifications and standards, but the alliance is dedicated to “providing practical implementation guidance for AI in RAN,” he said.

The alliance's founding members include Amazon Web Services, Ericsson, Microsoft, Nokia, Northeastern University, Nvidia, Samsung Electronics, SoftBank and T-Mobile USA. T-Mobile subsequently launched AI-RAN Innovation Center based at its headquarters in Bellevue, Washington (see 2409180018).

While the alliance has only two carriers among its founding members, it’s “designed to be inconclusive and open to all players in the whole ecosystem,” Choi said. The 36-member alliance has a goal of 100 “in the very near future,” he said. “Our mission is definitely to build a diverse and collaborative community” of providers, vendors, researchers and “AI innovators,” he said. “We are not exclusive to any single vendor.”

Verizon, meanwhile, released its annual State of Small Business Survey, which found that “AI awareness is driving AI adoption.” In the past year, the number of small businesses using AI more than doubled to 39% in 2024, compared with 14% in 2023, Verizon said. That’s “in large part due to the growing familiarity with and accessibility of AI and its business applications.”

Verizon said, “A rise in AI awareness among” small businesses “has a dual impact: decision-makers are more likely to perceive benefits, but it can also heighten security concerns.” The survey also found small businesses are investing in technology, with 66% of respondents upgrading their internet bandwidth during the past year.