Agentic AI enables trusted inter-operator collaboration to restore critical connectivity faster during emergencies

Coordinating telecom resilience when emergencies disrupt multiple networks

When natural disasters, infrastructure failures or power outages disrupt connectivity at scale, operators must restore critical services quickly. Telecom networks are built for resilience, but recovery often remains fragmented, with each operator working independently across complex, multi-domain environments. That can slow decision-making, limit visibility and delay the return of essential connectivity.

The Catalyst project Inter-operator composability for emergency response: OmniBOSS - Phase III addresses this challenge by proposing a governed, real-time model for collaboration during major service disruptions. The project focuses on enabling operators to dynamically compose and coordinate network capabilities, including coverage, capacity and routing, so available resources can be directed where they are needed most.

Using AI to coordinate cross-operator recovery

At the heart of the solution is an agentic AI orchestration layer that continuously interprets network, service and environmental data, evaluates recovery options and orchestrates responses across participating operators. The layer is designed to provide situational awareness, support cross-operator service composition, enforce policy-based decisions, maintain human oversight and enable pre-authorized autonomous execution where appropriate. Decisions and actions remain explainable and auditable, with controls to validate outcomes and roll back temporary changes once normal operating conditions are restored.

This matters because large-scale outages can interrupt life-saving connectivity for emergency services, healthcare providers and affected communities, while also creating operational and commercial risks, from revenue loss and service-level breaches to regulatory exposure and reputational damage. Today, the industry lacks a widely adopted model for trusted, temporary collaboration between operators that can address accountability, cost allocation and governance in real time. OmniBOSS Phase III seeks to close that gap by combining automation, composability and policy control. The collaboration is deliberately limited to the emergency, with operators sharing only the information and capabilities required under predefined permissions, policies and commercial agreements rather than exposing complete inventories or permanently pooling network resources.

In the demonstrated workflow, composable emergency events trigger cross-domain analysis of affected resources, services and critical locations. OmniBOSS evaluates recovery options across participating operators, generates a coordinated recovery plan, engages field teams where physical intervention is required, executes approved changes through the relevant OSS/BSS environments and verifies service restoration.

Building on TM Forum assets to create trusted emergency collaboration

The project uses a broad set of TM Forum Open APIs, including TMF688 Event Management, TMF628 Performance Management, TMF639 Resource Inventory Management, TMF638 Service Inventory Management, TMF641 Service Ordering Management, TMF640 Service Activation and Configuration, TMF622 Product Ordering Management, TMF642 Alarm Management, TMF621 Trouble Ticket Management, TMF632 Party Management, TMF620 Product Catalog Management and TMF657 Service Quality Management. Together, these assets provide a standards-based foundation for interoperable, API-driven collaboration across network and service domains. Service assurance is supported through the coordinated use of alarm, performance, trouble-ticket and service-quality capabilities.

The Catalyst also identifies potential areas for future TM Forum asset and standards evolution, including inter-operator governance, real-time event federation, secure and selective inventory and topology exchange, emergency intent-based orchestration, structured incident lifecycle management, cross-operator assurance and root cause analysis, settlement-aware orchestration and multi-operator service quality visibility. Advancing these capabilities could make emergency collaboration more explainable, auditable and aligned with regulatory, security and commercial requirements.

Business, industry and societal impact

For communications service providers, the potential benefits include significantly reduced restoration times, better protection for critical services and affected communities, more efficient coordinated workflows and a practical model for temporary resource sharing. The project demonstrates the potential for disaster recovery to move from days to hours, reducing disruption, protecting essential communications and enabling trusted operator collaboration. Commercial benefits, including reduced revenue loss, fewer service-level breaches and lower reputational risk, follow from the primary objective of restoring connectivity when lives and public safety may depend on it.

Pasan Nishantha, GM/System Integration & Operation at Sri Lanka Telecom, says the most important direct benefit is “the ability to restore critical connectivity within the narrow, life-saving window following a major disruption.” By enabling operators to act as a coordinated system rather than isolated entities, he says, the project can help ensure that available resources are used where they have the greatest impact.

The wider industry impact could also be significant. By shifting emergency recovery from isolated operator action to coordinated resilience, the project creates a foundation for cross-operator ecosystems beyond disaster response. Standardized APIs, agentic orchestration and composable architectures could accelerate interoperability and support new models of collaboration, while maintaining governance, auditability, operator control and trust.

For society, the stakes are even higher. Faster restoration of connectivity can support emergency services, healthcare providers, government operations and access to essential digital services during critical response windows. In the longer term, the project points toward more resilient digital infrastructure that supports public safety, economic stability and disaster preparedness.

At DTW Ignite 2026, OmniBOSS Phase III was named the Outstanding Catalyst winner for Showcase & storyline excellence.