Autonomous networks - the means to becoming a cognitive tech-co

Source: Huawei, a DTW sponsor. Ngarmchatetanarom delivers a keynote on AN and the cognitive tech-co.

AIS has proposed the "Cognitive Tech-Co", a digital strategy that aims to transform a traditional communications service provider into a cognitive technology company that delivers a premium and distinctive experience to every user. 

Autonomous networks (AN) are indispensable foundation for this journey, said Kitti Ngarmchatetanarom, AIS CTO, in a keynote at the Autonomous Networks Leadership Forum, which is part of TM Forum's flagship Digital Transformation World (DTW) 2022. 

According to the CTO, traditional telecom providers are facing difficulties such as slow revenue growth, ARPU pressure, and profit challenges. To provide real-time, interactive, and personalised services and network operations, they desperately need technological innovation and digital transformation. Enter the AN, which already has mature standards and best practices. 

Ngarmchatetanarom shared that AIS has evaluated autonomous network levels (ANLs) and the business benefits that AN can offer across the wireless network, transmission network, core network, and service domains. So far, AIS has completed end-to-end ANL evaluations for incident management and customer complaint handling scenarios. Customer complaint handling is pegged at AN level 2.2 while incident management has reached level 2.1*. In view of this, AIS aims to achieve level 3 autonomous networking by 2023, and level 4 by 2025. 

Looking ahead, AIS will spare no effort in designing the target architecture and implementing more AN capabilities to accelerate all-scenario AN level evaluations and value assessments in the near future. AIS will also collaborate with vendors to develop more AN best practices, Ngarmchatetanarom said. 

AIS is the largest mobile operator in Thailand. It has subscriber market share of 46%, with over 44 million subscribers. Its 5G service covers 76% of the population nationwide. Positioning itself as a digital life service provider, AIS aims to deliver a distinctive customer experience, enable digitalisation and intelligence, and provide benefits to all of society.

*TM Forum has listed six levels of autonomous networking:

- Level 0 (manual management)

The system delivers assisted monitoring capabilities, which means all dynamic tasks have to be executed manually.

- Level 1 (assisted management)

The system executes a certain repetitive sub-task based on preconfigured parameters to increase execution efficiency.

- Level 2 (partial autonomous network)

The system enables closed-loop operations and maintenance (O&M) for certain units based on AI modelling under certain external environments.

- Level 3 (conditional autonomous network) 

Building on L2 capabilities, the system has awareness and can sense real-time environmental changes, and in certain network domains, optimise and adapt to the external environment to enable intent-based closed-loop management. 

- Level 4 (highly autonomous network)

Building on L3 capabilities, the system can, in a more complicated cross-domain environment, analyse and make decisions based on predictive or active closed-loop management of service and customer experience-driven networks.

- Level 5 (full autonomous network) 

This level is the ultimate goal for telecom network evolution. The system possesses closed-loop automation capabilities across multiple services, multiple domains, and the entire lifecycle.