News

The chatbot is an upgrade to the pre-existing ‘TOBi’ 

Vodafone has announced the rollout of SuperTOBi, its new virtual assistant powered by Generative AI (GenAI), across Europe. Built on Microsoft Azure OpenAI, SuperTOBi is designed to handle complex customer inquiries more effectively than traditional chatbots.

After successful launches in Italy and Portugal, SuperTOBi will be available to customers in Germany and Turkey this month, with more countries to follow later in the year. This new service builds on Vodafone’s existing chatbot, TOBi, which already supports customers in 13 countries across Europe and Africa and understands 11 languages.

SuperTOBi is a key part of Vodafone’s broader effort to improve customer experience, supported by a €140 million (£120 million) investment this financial year. Unlike conventional chatbots that rely on keyword recognition, Vodafone says SuperTOBi can understand full sentences and phrases, allowing for more natural and personalised conversations. It can also transfer complex questions to human agents when needed.

In the announcement’s press release, Vodafone provided us with some results. The first-time resolution rate has increased from 15% to 60%, and the online net promoter score (NPS) has risen by 14 points to 64. Additional functions, such as billing inquiries, are also being added to SuperTOBi’s capabilities.

Vodafone has also introduced SuperAgent, a bot assistant for customer care employees, and SuperSearch, an improved search tool on its customer-facing websites. SuperAgent, based on Microsoft Azure OpenAI’s Agent Copilot solution, helps human agents find answers to complex queries more quickly. In Ireland, it summarises online customer conversations for agents, reducing the need for customers to repeat themselves. This tool uses information from Vodafone’s internal knowledge database, ensuring reliability and accuracy.

Join the UK telcos in conversation at this year’s Connected Britain event, 11-12 September in London. Get tickets here!

Also in the news:
Dutch operators finally get their hands on midband 5G spectrum
Virgin Media O2 completes first stage of Shared Rural Network
Xavier Niel’s $4.1 billion bid for Millicom is too low, company says

Press Release

Nokia, BT Group and Qualcomm achieve enhanced 5G SA downlink speeds in European first 5G Carrier Aggregation with Five Component Carriers

• BT Group becomes first European operator to achieve 5G 5CC carrier aggregation, boosting 5G standalone (SA) performance ahead of network launch later this year.
• Combines three FDD and two TDD carriers with 150 MHz total bandwidth, delivering greater capacity and downlink speeds in areas of high demand.
• Follows 5G SA downlink 4CC carrier aggregation breakthrough in 2022, and concurrent two carrier uplink aggregation in 2023.

5 July 2024. Espoo, Finland – Nokia and BT Group today announced that they have successfully aggregated 5G Standalone (SA) spectrum using 5CC Carrier Aggregation (5CC CA), making BT Group the first European operator to achieve this milestone. The achievement uses a device powered by a Snapdragon® 5G Modem-RF system from Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., a pioneer and global leader in 5G technology.

5CC CA will significantly boost the data rates available to customers in areas of high demand by combining all mid-band radio spectrum when the 5G SA device requires a high-speed connection. Set to launch later this year, EE’s 5G SA network will also have the capability to leverage a low frequency sixth carrier to provide a superior experience in more places, including indoors.

In 2023, BT Group and Nokia successfully demonstrated 4CC CA in 5G SA downlink with concurrent 2CC CA in 5G SA uplink. With today’s announcement, the companies reached the next milestone, achieving further performance uplift in connections from the device to the network by increasing throughput and capacity.

The tests were conducted in the field on live network spectrum at Adastral Park, BT Group’s headquarters for R&D, using Nokia’s 5G AirScale portfolio and a device powered by a Snapdragon® 5G Modem-RF system from Qualcomm Technologies. Downlink speeds of 1.85 Gbps were reached, using three FDD carriers NR2600 (30MHz), NR2100 (20MHz), NR1800 (20MHz) aggregated with two TDD carriers NR3600 (40+40MHz).

Greg McCall, Chief Networks Officer at BT Group, said: “This latest milestone achieved with Nokia and Qualcomm Technologies enhances 5G SA performance as we work towards the launch of our network, building further on the benefits of carrier aggregation in delivering greater throughput and speeds to customers. This is particularly important as more and more devices come to market with 5CC CA capabilities. We are focused on maximising our spectrum assets to deliver the very best experience to our customers with that in mind.”

Mark Atkinson, SVP and Head of RAN at Nokia, said: “This successful trial with our long-standing partner, BT is another great example of Nokia’s clear leadership in 5G carrier aggregation technology. Multi-component carrier aggregation helps mobile operators to maximize their radio network assets and provide the highest 5G data rates at more locations to subscribers.”

Dino Flore, Vice President, Technology, Qualcomm Europe, Inc. said: “Qualcomm Technologies is committed to pushing the boundaries of 5G connectivity, and our Snapdragon 5G Modem-RF Systems are designed to unlock the full potential of 5G, delivering unparalleled speed, efficiency and capacity for networks and their users. We are proud to work with Nokia and BT Group to play a key role in bringing this enhanced 5G experience to European consumers.”

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With the US out for a long weekend, here’s a quick rundown on infrastructure news from elsewhere in the world: … [visit site to read more]

Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) says it has embarked on a project with UAE operator group Etisalat by e& to build what it claims is the energy sector’s largest ever private 5G network, spanning 11,000 square kilometres.

According to a statement from ADNOC on Wednesday, the private 5G network will cover its onshore and offshore operations, providing (among other things) IoT connectivity for sensors embedded in more than 12,000 wells and pipelines.

The 5G-connected sensors will relay data to autonomous control rooms, which will be equipped with AI to crunch the data and make real-time recommendations to increase the lifespan of ADNOC’s field assets and ensure safety in the field.

ADNOC added that the network will also allow for the digitalization of wellheads and provide end-to-end visibility over operations, thereby driving productivity across the company’s entire value chain.

ADNOC also said the private 5G network ties into its broader strategy to integrate AI solutions at its most remote facilities to reduce costs through automation, as well as improve efficiency, minimize emissions and enhance workplace safety, and generally fulfil ADNOC’s ambition to become “the world’s most AI-enabled energy company.”

“Global demand is rising for both energy and AI, so by investing in cutting-edge connectivity across our operations, we can ensure that we continue providing secure, reliable and responsible energy to our customers,” said Dr. Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, who is both the UAE’s Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology and ADNOC’s MD and group CEO.

The project is due to be completed in 2025, and is expected to generate AED5.5 billion (US$1.5 billion) in value during its first five years of operation, ADNOC said.

The Philippine government’s new project to expand the reach of fibre broadband across the country will result in more lines deployed, but it won’t get more people connected if services are too expensive, says analyst firm BMI Country Risk & Industry Research.

Last week, the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) approved the Philippine Digital Infrastructure Project (PDIP), which aims to improve and expand fibre broadband infrastructure across the country, especially for remote areas.

The PDIP includes building backbone, middle-mile and last-mile FTTx networks, as well as network security and project management. The NEDA has authorized a price tag of P16.1 billion (about US$274.4 million) for the project, which will be funded by loans from the World Bank.

However, according to local media outlets, a report from Fitch Group’s BMI earlier this week said that whether the project helps to boost the Philippines’ internet population will depend on whether the resulting services are more affordable than they are now.

BMI estimates that fibre connections in the Philippines will reach 1.58 million this year, and then grow to just 1.83 million by 2033. BMI stressed that the main obstacle to fibre uptake is cost, “particularly stemming from the elevated costs of rollout that are further increased by the Philippines’ archipelagic configuration.”

Much of the projected growth is expected to come from uptake in metro and suburban areas, driven in part by moved from PLDT, Globe Telecom and Converge ICT Solutions to offer low-cost fibre packages. Consequently, the BMI report said, “the PDIP may only provide marginal upsides to our outlook.”

That said, BMI reckons the PDIP could help by executing and managing the project in ways that encourage wholesale network providers and ISPs to lower the price of fibre packages, particularly “by extensively co-financing last-mile area rollout”.

According to 2022 figures from the World Bank, the Philippines is one of the most expensive fixed broadband markets in ASEAN, with prices more than double the regional average. 

News 

The partnership comes as a response to the growing complexities of cyber-attacks, skill shortages, stringent regulatory requirements, and the rise of hybrid workforces 

Australian telco Optus has announced a multi-year partnership with Cisco aimed at increasing network protection for enterprise and business customers. 

The announcement notes that because 37% of Australians now regularly work remotely, there has been an increase in the reliance of Software-as-a-Service public and on-demand network services. Although these are convenient, they can increase the risk of security breaches in both devices and their software. 

In an effort to combat this, the new partnership will see Optus launch a portfolio of network security services, powered by Cisco.  

“This includes the significant upgrade of Optus’ Secure Network Operation Centre, complemented by a suite of new products from Cisco,” the companies confirmed.  

There will also be a boost in the investment of Optus’ Integrated Network Operation Centre and Security Operation Centre. 

The platform also includes Cisco-Powered Secure Firewall and Managed Secure Service Edge (SSE) services. Additional features, like vulnerability management, advanced email security, and integration with Cisco Meraki and ThousandEyes, will further enhance security for Optus customers. 

“Our enterprise and business customers rely on Optus to deliver a network that can support high traffic, secure and reliable bandwidth. We are committed to creating solutions that address complex security issues while optimising performance and reliability, particularly in environments that are increasingly hard to defend,” said Danny Price, VP Client Services and Delivery, Enterprise and Business at Optus. 

Optus itself has faced multiple cyber security issues in recent years. In September 2022, Optus suffered a data breach that affected up to 10 million current and former customers, comprising a third of Australia’s population. The breach resulted in the illegal acquisition of sensitive information, including names, dates of birth, addresses, and contact details.  

Australia’s Communications and Media Authority subsequently launched legal action against Optus in May over the breach, saying it “failed to protect the confidentiality of its customers’ personal information from unauthorised interference or unauthorised access.” 

Former CEO Kelly Bayer Rosmarin also resigned from her position in November last year, following a 14-hour network outage that left millions without mobile or internet coverage for over 12 hours. 

Keep up to date with the latest international telecoms news by subscribing to the Total Telecom newsletter  

Also in the news:
Dutch operators finally get their hands on midband 5G spectrum
Virgin Media O2 completes first stage of Shared Rural Network
Xavier Niel’s $4.1 billion bid for Millicom is too low, company says 

News

The new non-cash impairment charge is in addition to the $2.9 billion impairment logged last year

Ericsson acquired application programming interface (API) specialist Vonage back in 2022 for $6.2 billion, saying at the time that it would play a central role its in ongoing growth strategy.

The idea, in short, was that Ericsson would work together with Vonage to develop network APIs, allowing app developers to gain deeper access to telcos’ 4G and 5G networks, including features such as user authentication, bandwidth, responsiveness, energy efficiency, and security. This, the companies said, would allow developers to better leverage the network to create unique and interesting applications.

In particular, the partners said they would work to build a Global Network Platform for APIs, essentially allowing app developers to rollout their apps across any telco network running on Ericsson equipment – a task that would previously have required unique coding for each telco partner.

At the time, Ericsson claimed that the communications API market would swell to $22 billion by 2025, growing at a CAGR of 30%.

In reality, however, things have moved far more slowly than predicted. App developers’ appetite to get deep into telco networks has been slim, while competition from rival platforms, including Amazon, has been fierce.

By last year, the Swedish operator had announced a non-cash impairment of $2.9 billion – almost half of the acquisition’s value – citing ‘the significant drop in the market capitalization of Vonage’s publicly traded peers, increased interest rates and overall slowdown in Vonage’s core markets.’

Today, the company’s fortunes continue to slide, with Ericsson writing off a further $1.1 billion for Q2 this year.

In total, this leaves Vonage worth only around a third of what Ericsson paid for it just two short years ago.

Ericsson attributed this reassessment of Vonage’s value as being related to “deterioration in the market environment and elective decisions we have made to refocus our investments in strategically prioritized areas”, according to Niklas Heuveldop, Head of Business Area Global Communications Platform and CEO of Vonage.

Despite this, Vonage appears committed to further developing its Global Network Platform.

“We continue to advance our strategy to build a Global Network Platform for network APIs, which was the strategic impetus for the Vonage acquisition. We recently announced additional partnerships with leading mobile network operators and we see continued positive momentum across the industry,” said Heuveldop.

“Through this strategy, we are making advanced 5G network capabilities available to the world’s developer community to accelerate the innovation of value-added applications for industry and society. This will open up new revenue streams for our operator customers and spur growth in the telecom industry.”

At this point, there is no doubt that Ericsson paid far too much in its acquisition of Vonage. Just how much it overvalued the company, however, remains to be seen.

Keep up to date with the latest international telecoms news by subscribing to the Total Telecom daily newsletter 

Also in the news:
Dutch operators finally get their hands on midband 5G spectrum
Virgin Media O2 completes first stage of Shared Rural Network
Xavier Niel’s $4.1 billion bid for Millicom is too low, company says

Keep up-to-date with all the latest news, articles, event and product updates posted on Developing Telecoms.
Subscribe to our FREE weekly email newsletters for the latest telecom info in developing and emerging markets globally.

No prizes for guessing that AI stole everyone’s attention at Digital Transformation World in Copenhagen this year. In every keynote and session, the two letter acronym left the lips of every single person that took a stage.

It is no wonder that AI dominated the show after so much fanfare already this year. The much hyped technology promises so particularly to birth new use cases that can save costs and generate fresh revenues.

Axiata Group CEO and Executive Director, Dr Hans Wijayasuriya said in his keynote that the telecoms industry can double its size to US$2 trillion dollars if it can “move from connectivity to a world where we sell end-to-end solutions”. He pointed to AI being a key technology to digitally transform operators into technology companies with this sort of scale and capability. He warned MNOs that do not jump on AI with haste, will be left behind to languish. 

On the same panel, Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison President Director and CEO Vikram Sinha and Jio Platforms boss Kiran Thomas pointed to how AI can generate GDP growth for Indonesia and India respectively.

TM Forum CEO Nik Willetts pointed out in his speech that only a handful of MNOs are seeing bottom line increases from AI, but added many operators are still early in their digital transformation journeys. 

Autonomous networks

In the telecoms space, automation of networks has been viewed as an eventuality to cut down costs but also create new services, and is a key use case for AI in telecoms.

Bradley Mead (pictured, right), Ericsson Head of Managed Network Services, said “autonomous networks is ultimately where we need to go” as an industry, but acknowledged it is a long journey but “starting it is vital”.

The ultimate goal for all sectors tapping into AI is to achieve ‘Level 5’ said Mead, which means full automation. This is considered the ‘holy grail’ for all automation projects, regardless of industry – Level 5 is akin to a fully driverless car with no need for a steering wheel, or a network that runs completely by itself with no engineer.  

“Hopefully it [Level 5] will unlock new revenue streams for operators because ultimately, that’s what we all need for the industry to be successful,” said Mead.­

Sunil Gupta (pictured, left), Digital Nasional Berhad (DNB)’s Head of Digital Delivery, spoke about the challenges and opportunities of navigating autonomous networks in Malaysia’s singular 5G network.

Malaysia has a rather unique telecoms landscape, as the government decreed all six MNOs must equally share a single 5G network run by DNB, which was set up in 2021 to handle the deployment.

Gupta explained this is a Multi-Operator Core Network (MOCN) set-up, a key innovation in 5G that enables multiple operators to share common infrastructure while maintaining individual services and brands.

The idea was that this would cut down on expensive deployments, reduce rollout time and of course adapt to new technologies such as AI at speed. But in the time that Malaysia’s government has taken to strike deals with its operators, peers in Asia-Pacific such as Thailand and Indonesia have launched commercial 5G services.

The government had been steadfast in its strategy, betting there will be long-term returns from of its unique plan.

Gupta stressed that having operators share the same infrastructure and keeping their wealth of data private from each other was a key challenge.

To tackle this, DNB with its exclusive vendor Ericsson pushed through with the network being a “machine or data driven operation,” said Gupta. Through using AI technology, DNB was able to predict in real time where problems on the network would arise – one example was finding out why calls were being dropped in a particular location – and safeguard against it to maintain high levels of service.

Gupta revealed two main targets with its AI-boosted network: to provide enterprise network slicing and autonomous network energy management.

Levels of AI

At another stage, Telkomsel’s Director of Networks Indra Mardiatna (pictured, above) hailed the Indonesian operator’s successful implementation of autonomous network technology, highlighting benefits such as customer complaint handling, reduction of manual tasks, and improved NPS scores.

Mardiatna detailed how Telkomsel’s dive into automating its network has made processes smoother.

He pointed out the “legacy” way of handling a customer complaint had too many steps for subscribers, taking up valuable time. Now, Telkomsel customers only have to answer two questions, with analysis of their query coming “automatically from the network” including the root cause.

From this, Mardiatna claimed user complaint handling had improved by 88%, and that Telkomsel’s NPS score is 20% above the industry average.

Mardiatna noted that Christmas, Ramadan and New Year’s were three recent events when Telkomsel experienced heavy network traffic. These special days on the calendar used to require a lot of manual tasks to be completed to ensure the network ran smoothly.

“Previously when we experienced a push in threshold level, someone would have to execute manually an automation request, but now this can be done by machine,” said Mardiatna.

Telkomsel’s network was “90% automated” during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan for crowd management, as worshippers gathered daily at Mosques to pray. Mardiatna stated this worked six times better than having an engineer manually divert traffic to other parts of the network. This led to a 20% decrease in customer complaints, noted Mardiatna.

Looking ahead, Telkomsel is aiming to achieve level 4 AI automation in 2025. But Mardiatna acknowledged a few key challenges must be overcome to hit the target of having a “zero touch network” – a network that can heal and adjust itself based on the data it collects.

The first challenge that many operators have highlighted is quality of data and improving data validity. Mardiatna said due to poor data in the early days of using AI, the operator saw results that were a complete “disaster”.

Second, was cost for equipment such as GPUs to install into data centres to tap into AI software. Finally, third was reskilling staff, as the operator has “a lot of legacy telco people” who need convincing an autonomous network is the way forward.

“Despite all of these challenges, we believe autonomous networks will unlock all possibilities. We can achieve more and we believe also we move forward together,” concluded Mardiatna.