- CSPs building out greenfield networks like Dish and Telefonica are proving cloud migration potential
- AI has emerged as a wild card, a catalyst that could accelerate innovation but it's also widening the skills gap
- Irony alert: AI is helping telcos overcome the challenges created by AI
MOBILE WORLD CONGRESS, BARCELONA – In the complex dance of network and cloud transformation, the stakes are higher than ever for telcos due to AI. Yes, the telco industry had been talking about cloud migration for years, but now they aren't just moving infrastructure, they are having to reimagine their entire operational landscape thanks to those two letters (AI) that changed everything.
Late on Monday at MWC, Fierce Network sat down with Chivas Nambiar, GM of the global telecom business unit at AWS, who said CSPs building out greenfield networks like Dish and Telefonica are proving cloud migration by shifting millions of subscribers onto cloud infrastructure, and are breaking down traditional barriers with each successful deployment.
"If I go back and look at two years ago, maybe even three years ago, there were early conversations about what that network cloud should look like, and then it was mostly greenfield operators," he said. "Dish proved that you could take a nationwide deployment, deploy it out onto cloud infrastructure, and show that it works."
Telefónica in Germany put a region of their core network into the AWS cloud and has publicly talked about how they moved 1 million subscribers onto it, Nambiar said. "They have plans to get to 4 million subs by the end of the year. That tells you that a brownfield has gone through same process, and they know that it works."
BT also stands out as a beacon of cloud ambition, not just in moving to the cloud but by creating a "Global Fabric" that will redefine how enterprises connect and operate. "BT is a great example. They said, 'We think that you need a different network to serve enterprises that want to do more work in the cloud.'"
True, AI has emerged as a wild card, a catalyst that could accelerate innovation but it's also widening the skills gap for CSPs that were already struggling to find talent. On the one hand, for smaller telco engineering teams, generative AI can help them comprehend complex systems, generate code faster and push boundaries.
On the other hand, it's opened a wider skills gap by requiring expertise in something akin to NetSecDevOps, according to Colin Bannon, CTO, BT Business.
"I was on a panel with Ericsson ... They were talking about how they have 10,000 engineers. These 10,000 engineers need to really understand all the complexities of all the subsystems for them to deliver code to their customers," said Nambiar. "At some point you run into the limits of human comprehension. What they're doing is they're taking all of that data, all of the code, all the documents and putting it into a place where GenAI can go scan that, understand that and then help engineers build code faster."
So AI is helping telcos overcome the challenges created by AI, apparently. Oh the irony!
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