New report identifies progress and benefits across the 5G network lifecycle

Infovista welcomes TM Forum’s new industry survey findings on the use and benefits of automating tasks and processes at different stages of the 5G network lifecycle.

The global survey reveals for the first time the progress CSPs are making in achieving their Network Lifecycle Automation (NLA) blueprints, and the benefits they expect or have already realized when implementing this new systems approach.

While 92% of respondents said their investments in 5G networks over the past five years have paid off, 87% of telecom operators surveyed acknowledged that their new network assets could be deployed more efficiently and optimally, with only 14% believing they are making the most of their investments.

Few telecom operators are fully satisfied with the time it took to deploy 5G networks, with 58% of respondents believing their 5G network deployment strategy took longer than it took to execute. 86% of respondents even said that the benefits took too long to be realized or have not yet borne fruit due to business, technical and commercial barriers.

The report makes clear that in the face of increasing network and service complexity, many communications service providers are looking to automate tasks and processes at different stages of the network lifecycle to maximize the return on 5G investments while accelerating deployment and maximizing revenue.

To this end, TM Forum’s report, “Network Lifecycle Automation: Can CSPs Optimize 5G Investments?” details the numerous obstacles and unprecedented levels of complexity that CSPs face in planning, deploying and optimizing their 5G networks.

CSPs are forced to manage massive amounts of data about business, technology, process and product performance, creating a noisy environment that is difficult to manage, navigate and improve from end to end.

When asked about their top priorities for unlocking to maximize return on their 5G network investments, CSPs identified the following top three priorities:

• Establishing a common automation platform between planning, deployment and operations systems (42%).
• Accurately link planning, configuration, testing and operations to customer experience (33%).
• Building cloud-native technology and/or looking for vendors with cloud-native solutions (30%).

According to the TM Forum report, these CSP priorities can be addressed by:

• Introducing new cross-phase processes that automate tasks and workflows across multiple applications in network planning, testing and deployment, and automated assurance and operations.
• Move these operational functions from one-time activities to a lifecycle management process of continuous improvement.
• Provides a shared view of responsibilities, processes, tasks, and results for discrete but related teams such as network planning, deployment, operations, and revenue management.
• Create data feedback loops between these operational functions to drive collaboration, observability, and continuous optimization.

This new, systematic approach to multi-stage and multi-silo automation use cases, under the name Network Lifecycle Automation (NLA), has been implemented by 62% of CSPs surveyed in the TM Forum report.

As described in this report, TM Forum members are working on many individual elements of NLA, including: AI-based automated network planning; flow-through network construction; automated network configuration/build/enablement; automated end-to-end network testing/validation; AI-operated predictive and preventive operations; AI-based cross-domain event correlation; zero-touch provisioning; self-healing and self-optimizing networks; cognitive intelligent field operations; unified network and IT operations; and continuous monitoring and improvement automation through flexible delivery processes and tools.

Dean Ramsey, principal analyst at TM Forum, said: “Communications service providers continue to invest aggressively in 5G network rollouts and now find themselves having to better optimise planning, deployment and operations to meet ambitious ROI expectations.

Our global survey of CSP intentions clearly shows that many are turning to network lifecycle automation as a new, systematic approach to achieving multi-stage and multi-silo automation use cases. Operations leaders are now looking to expand the scope of automation to span the entire network lifecycle in a systematic manner as a path to improve productivity and performance at a lower cost.

Due to the urgency of expanding and improving 5G networks, NLAs can be applied to a variety of use cases that are directly relevant to CSPs. According to the survey, the most pressing barriers that need to be removed are high capital expenditures due to inefficient capital expenditure allocation (29%) and slower than expected rollout due to difficulties in establishing a business case (27%).

Reflecting this, the priority areas for network lifecycle automation identified by CSPs are:

• Optimize network planning to maximize ROI by combining operational data about quality of experience with network data about performance (61%).
• Use test data to optimize planning forecasts, and use planning data to optimize testing (18%).