- Vivo’s 5G network fully automates transport and backhaul layers
- Brazil joins China as an autonomous network superpower
- The origin of Vivo’s L4 tech is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma
The world now has three fully autonomous networks, a remarkable development given that comms networks operating without human intervention weren’t originally expected to appear until the 2030s.
The newest addition belongs to Vivo, a.k.a. Telefônica Brazil, and joins automation pioneers Beijing’s Tsinghua University and China Mobile on an elite shortlist of organizations operating live production networks at the fourth level of the TM Forum’s model — without human oversight.
Vivo uses the Telefônica Brazil Autonomous Configuration System to automate the transport and backhaul components of its 5G network and is planning to extend its use to the radio access network (RAN), according to Fábio Rocha, a spokeshombre for Vivo. Benefits so far include reducing network activation time from 32 days to less than 24 hours and an estimated 25% reduction in network alarms.
Like the AI and automation technologies that it’s based on, Level 4 autonomy is controversial.
On the one hand, fully autonomous networks are the Six Million Dollar Men of telecom: faster, stronger, better than conventional networks that still use carbon-based life forms to oversee silicon-based infrastructure. On the other hand, they are also in the vanguard of what many are afraid will devolve into a global automated dystopia, where human beings lose their agency and their jobs to soulless machines created and controlled by Big Tech.
So, Vivo has the autonomous technology. But where does it come from? That's a good question, gentle reader. In a written response, Vivo told me it developed the technology internally and that “the system is vendor-agnostic, capable of seamlessly integrating and configuring diverse equipment types.”
It’s unlikely it flew solo on this project, however. Service providers typically don’t like spending their own money to develop bespoke technology in-house, preferring to get it from industry vendors. R&D, especially in areas like artificial intelligence (AI), is expensive and challenging. Vivo’s parent company, Telefonica, spends less than a billion dollars a year on it, compared to almost $25 billion spent by Huawei or $5 billion each by Ericsson and Nokia.
Where there’s a will, there’s a Huawei
Of the three vendors, it’s most likely that it is Huawei that is in the mix in Vivo’s autonomous network for a few reasons:
- Both of the world’s first L4 autonomous networks, at Tsinghua University and China Mobile, use Huawei. It has momentum and is building a unique track record in autonomous production network deployments.
- In March last year, Vivo and Huawei entered into a patent licensing deal, which gave the Brazilian operator access to the Chinese company's 5G technology, including autonomous capabilities. Coincidence?
- I spied Huawei (aha!) in some code in an obscure video about Vivo’s autonomous capabilities on YouTube (it now has 140 views, up from the 139 it had before I discovered it at 2 a.m. last week — hey, it’s what I do).
Huawei didn’t reply to a request for comment on whether it was behind Vivo’s L4 autonomous solution.
Why wouldn't it crow about its success in Brazil? In a word: politics. It’s likely trying to avoid irking its customer or the Brazilian government or revive the drama of 2020 when the U.S. government tried to go all Team America: World Police about Brazil using Huawei equipment and threaten/scare it into not using the Chinese vendor. (It didn’t work. Brazil’s Agência Nacional de Telecomunicações said, "cda macaco no seu galho," and today, Huawei reportedly supports almost 50% of Brazil’s 5G networks).
When you have a hundred-year plan, like the Chinese, as opposed to bigging yourself up for the next quarterly earnings report or election, like the Americans, it truly doesn’t matter who receives the credit for the technology as long as you’re winning. And right now, Huawei is definitely winning.
Op-eds from industry experts, analysts or our editorial staff are opinion pieces that do not represent the opinions of Fierce Network.