Leveraging automated networks to deliver in high-value scenarios

Sun Xuezhi, Overseas Business Department, Deputy GM of Inspur traced the beginning of the concept of autonomous networks (AN) back to 2019. He noted that TM Forum and standards bodies like 3GPP, ITU-T and GSMA had agreed on its importance and begun work on standardization.

The succession of white papers, up to the current Version 7.0, and the Forum’s maturity matrix, has been accompanied by increasing adoption stated Sun. He added that the most pioneering among them – like China Mobile, China Unicom, China Telecom, AIS, Vodafone, Orange and MTN – intend to achieve Level 3 and Level 4 in TM Forum’s AN model in the next three to five years.

Sun said that over time, the industry has come to understand the value of focusing on high-value scenarios, because it avoids starting with almost 900 sub-scenarios, or having to break down the entire network and services. Instead it achieves network autonomy step by step, focusing on a specific network or service to resolve real, urgent requirements.

Inspur has embraced this approach. It developed what it calls ‘2+5+N’ architecture (explained in this interview) and became one of the largest AN vendors in the Chinese market. Sun said that, for example, by applying AI, the company can automatically adjust IP traffic to improve operational efficiency by about 60% using predictive algorithms.

He highlighted another high-value scenario: Inspur’s automated fault ticket inspection which can boost the efficiency of the quality inspection pass from 90% to 99%.