DURING the TM Forum’s Digital Transformation World 2022, Kitti Ngarmchatetanarom, AIS chief technology officer, delivered a keynote speech titled “Autonomous Networks Forms the Basis of the Journey towards Cognitive Tech-Co” at the Autonomous Networks Leadership Forum.
The chief technology officer said traditional telecom providers are facing difficulties such as slow revenue growth, average revenue per unit (ARPU) pressure, and profit challenges. To provide real-time, interactive, and personalized services and network operations, they desperately need technological innovation and digital transformation. Therefore, AIS proposed the digital strategy “Cognitive Tech-Co,” aiming to transform from a traditional communications service provider to a cognitive technology company and bring each user a premium and distinctive experience. Autonomous Networks (AN) will provide an indispensable foundation for this journey.
The AN concept was proposed by the TM Forum, together with some telecom providers and vendors. Since then, a set of mature standards and excellent practice cases have been developed in the industry. In TM Forum’s recently released Autonomous Networks Industry White Paper 4.0, which involved more than 50 contributors (over 20 operators) worldwide, and as one of the major contributors, AIS is contributing to the development of the Autonomous Networks industry.
L3 AN by 2023
Kitti stated that AIS would refer to the industry standards released by organizations such as TM Forum and 3GPP to innovate and explore key technologies, with focus on intent-driven, ANL evaluation, closed-loop control, and autonomous domains.
Based on TM Forum’s AN level evaluation methodology, AIS has carried out a comprehensive evaluation of Autonomous Networks levels (ANLs) and business values of AN across the wireless network, transmission network, core network and service domains. So far, AIS has finished end-to-end ANL evaluation in two minimum viable processes, including Incident Management and Customer Complaint Handling scenarios. According to the AN level evaluation results, Customer Complaint Handling has reached L2.2 and Incident Management has reached L2.1. In view of this, AIS set the phased goal of achieving L3 AN by 2023.
Higher-level AN
Looking ahead, AIS will spare no effort in designing the target architecture and implementing more AN capabilities to accelerate all-scenario AN level evaluation and value assessment in the near future. AIS will keep collaborating with vendors to produce more best AN practices so as to co-create and contribute more high-value assets. More importantly, AIS is looking forward to moving towards L4 by 2025.
AIS is the largest mobile operator in Thailand, with a subscriber market share of 46 percent with over 44 million subscribers and the 5G service covering 76 percent of the population nationwide. Positioning itself as a digital life service provider, AIS aims to deliver a distinctive customer experience, enable digitalization and intelligence, and provide benefits to all of society.
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