{"id":6742,"date":"2024-06-20T12:56:54","date_gmt":"2024-06-20T12:56:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gsma.com\/get-involved\/gsma-foundry\/?p=6742"},"modified":"2025-12-12T15:43:44","modified_gmt":"2025-12-12T15:43:44","slug":"how-mobile-phone-networks-are-embracing-ai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gsma.com\/get-involved\/gsma-foundry\/artificial-intelligence\/how-mobile-phone-networks-are-embracing-ai\/","title":{"rendered":"How Mobile Phone Networks are Embracing AI"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Matthew Wall, Technology reporter. Original article from BBC News<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our mobile phones are getting a whole lot smarter, but what about the telecoms networks they run on?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last week, Apple became the latest mobile phone firm to announce that it will be adding artificial intelligence (AI)<\/a> to its handsets\u2019 operating system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Called Apple Intelligence, and also due to be incorporated into the phones\u2019 Siri chatbot, it aims to make them easier and quicker to use. And turn Siri into even more of a personal assistant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It follows after Samsung\u2019s Galaxy AI, and Google\u2019s Gemini AI for its own Pixel handsets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This increased of use AI means phones will be doing a lot more computing, and that means they\u2019ll produce and use a lot more data. This is going to put more strain on the mobile phone networks, such as the UK\u2019s O2, EE, Vodafone and Three.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To help them cope, telecoms firms such as these are also increasingly introducing AI, says Ian Fogg, director of network innovation at research consultancy CCS Insight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNetwork operators are using AI to manage the radio frequencies dynamically, to provide an optimum level of service. And to manage cell towers, for example, so they use less energy at times of lower demand.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Such increased use of AI to look after mobile phone networks is now very much global. In South Korea, Korea Telecom is now able to localise and fix faults within a minute, thanks to AI-enabled network monitoring, says Alex Sinclair, chief technology officer of the GSMA, the body representing global mobile operators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, AT&T in the US is using predictive, AI algorithms schooled on trillions of previous network alerts to warn it when things are about to go wrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Ian
Image caption,Ian Fogg says that network providers are increasingly using AI to monitor their systems<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Other operators, like Vodafone, are using AI digital twins – virtual digital replicas of real-world equipment, such as masts and antennas \u2013 to constantly monitor how their networks are performing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And AI is also being used to manage how increasingly massive data centres use energy to keep their servers cool and optimise storage capacity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The explosion in data created by the increased use of AI is another reason why telecoms firms around the world are continuing to invest in so-called 5G Standalone mobile networks. These use new, dedicated 5G infrastructure rather than relying in part on upgrading the older, less efficient 4G system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

5G Standalone offers much higher speeds and capacity. But some experts believe that even this higher-spec technology won\u2019t be sufficient to cope with the demands of the AI era.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At this year\u2019s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, for example, some experts argued, external<\/a> that AI won\u2019t be able to reach its full potential until the roll out of 6G from 2028.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While mobile customers only tend to notice the network when things go wrong, they are much more aware when customer service levels are poor, with all the reputational damage this can cause brands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So the industry is also hoping AI can radically improve the way they interact with and serve customers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, the Global Telco AI Alliance – a joint venture company made up of Deutsche Telekom, e&, Singtel, Softbank and SK Telecom with 1.3 billion customers across 50 countries \u2013 aims to develop an AI chatbot specifically tailored to the telecoms sector, and the type of questions customers typically ask.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This specially trained chatbot will be able to deal with most of the basic queries coming from customers, leaving call centre staff free to concentrate on more complex cases, the Alliance\u2019s founders hope.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Workers
Image caption,AI is being used to automatically control the electricity usage of cell towers automatically<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, Vodafone has teamed up with Microsoft\u2019s Azure OpenAI Service to improve its customer service, spearheaded by its digital assistant Tobi, which interacts with more than 40 million customers a month in 13 countries and across 15 languages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The more Tobi can answer customer queries without the need for human intervention, the fewer complaints there are likely to be, which is good for profits and corporate reputation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe see AI primarily as a \u2018virtual assistant\u2019 for humans,\u201d says Scott Petty, Vodafone\u2019s chief technology officer. \u201cWe already see AI freeing-up Vodafone employees\u2019 time from tedious, repetitive manual work, enabling them to focus on more creative activities that benefit our customers and the environment.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AI also leaves the customer agents freer to work on more complex cases, he argues. Vodafone also says that Azure OpenAI is helping customers more easily find what they\u2019re looking for on its websites, with early evidence showing a doubling in the number of successful completed online customer journeys, and a 10% reduction in follow-up calls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Scott
Image caption,Scott Perry says that AI frees up staff to do the more interesting work<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

While many commentators worry that AI could lead to massive job losses in the telco sector, as menial tasks are increasingly automated by software, GSMA\u2019s Mr Sinclair believes it could actually be empowering, particularly for lower-income countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAI will give emerging markets a specialist tool to help them catch up,\u201d he argues. \u201cWe\u2019re in favour of trying to democratise AI so that it\u2019s not just the wealthy who can use it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He believes that some of the doom-mongering around AI has been overdone, and so he strikes a more optimistic tone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a view shared by CCS Insight\u2019s Ian Fogg: \u201cAI has been around for some years, used for specific [telecoms] cases. But now it\u2019s being applied in many more areas – network, devices, software – such that every tool we use now has the potential to become much, much better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Matthew Wall, Technology reporter. Original article from BBC News. Our mobile phones are getting a whole lot smarter, but what about the telecoms networks they run on? Last week, Apple became the latest mobile phone firm to announce that it will be adding artificial intelligence (AI) to its handsets\u2019 operating system. Called Apple Intelligence, and also due […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":6743,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_oasis_is_in_workflow":0,"_oasis_original":0,"_oasis_task_priority":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[125],"tags":[],"algolia_discover_type":[206],"class_list":["post-6742","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artificial-intelligence","algolia_discover_type-article"],"yoast_head":"\nHow Mobile Phone Networks are Embracing AI - GSMA Foundry<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.gsma.com\/get-involved\/gsma-foundry\/artificial-intelligence\/how-mobile-phone-networks-are-embracing-ai\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How Mobile Phone Networks are Embracing AI\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Matthew Wall, Technology reporter. 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