By Bernard Monville, Head of WAVE by AGC
Artificial Intelligence is on the lips of everyone at the moment and the exhibitors and attendees at MWC 24 were no exception.
One particularly engaging and inspiring talk was given by Tim Höttges, CEO of Deutsch Telekom. He stated: “Nothing has affected everyone, every business model, and the way we are operating and processing, more than AI”.
Endless Gains With AI
Research from Accenture has shown that with the same input productivity gains can be increased and output maximised by up to 37% when using AI.
But it is not just about cost savings. AI can help an operation to be more energy efficient, ensure higher quality, increase network stability, better harness predictive maintenance and enhance customer experience.
Mr Höttges stated there are endless gains in the ways customers can be served with AI. He explored how we can be takers, shapers, makers, and facilitators. You can be a taker by using what is there, you can be a maker by shaping what exists, you can then build using skills from AI and the cloud to become a facilitator.
Deutsch Telekom has established a competence center of 500 AI experts developing products that support smarter ways of working. When it comes to chatbots, AI has helped create more fluid conversations and better quality answers that has improved first call success by 50%. AI is helping answer employee HR questions, improve the productivity of fiber build out planning by as much as 75%, respond to external technician questions, identify network capacity demand, create energy savings, and identify malware.
AI is here to stay Mr Höttges concluded.
Growth Opportunities
It was also interesting to have greater discussions at MWC around the use of augmented reality demonstrations and see the growth opportunities for Open Radio Access Network (Open Ran) and private networks.
Open Ran is a network infrastructure that enables greater choice and flexibility in telecoms supply chains to help improve diversity in the supply chain. It allows suppliers to build and improve their networks using different bits of technology. A private network is secured and isolated from public internet. It allows authorised devices and apps to connect and exchange data with one another. Businesses often use private networks to create local area networks, which offer secure access within a defined geographic location. However, making a network private can be costly as well as complex to design and scale. While it is easy to add a device there still needs to be a dedicated infrastructure in place to support increasing demand.
Most providers of audit tools (Keysight, RS, Anritsu, …) and performance platform (OOKLA and opensignal) have extended their measurement capabilities to offer a global connectivity view for all technology. They now map 5G latency, WIFI6, and 4G and 5G signal strength to give a clear overview of the network capabilities. It is expected that this will ease the deployment of 5G use case.
Tackling challenges
However, there are challenges with using higher frequencies for mobile networks, as these signals have difficulty penetrating buildings. The market is actively exploring solutions such as installing repeaters or distributed antenna systems (DAS) in all buildings. Additionally, there is growing interest in utilizing millimeter wave (mmWave) bands to ensure high network capacity. Another area of interest is reconfigurable surfaces, with demonstrations of technologies like Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces (RIS) being presented by companies such as NTT Docomo Lab and KT Telecom. These technologies aim to improve signal distribution both indoors and outdoors, as well as in transportation settings like aircraft.
In fact, Qualcomm presented on its booth how the capabilities of our WAVETHRU solution have been explored at its 5G mmWave technology testbed in San Diego. They investigated how it drives consistent connectivity. Using our easy-to-install retrofittable glass surface treatment solution the propagation of 5G mmWave technology was enabled in challenging areas.
The future of connectivity outside and inside buildings and in cities is something big players such as NTT are focusing their attention on. They are exploring the use of higher frequencies but these can be more difficult to evenly deploy. Signals can also be delivered and distributed via femtocells, RIS and internal DAS systems. AGC offers some versatile and effective options in the form of WAVETHRU and WAVEANTENNA.
Sustainable Steps
The works on developing WAVETRAP, the specialty glass, first started roughly 2.5 years ago. It was developed as a team
Discussed too, was network sustainability. GSMA, a global trade body representing mobile network operators, has taken significant steps toward promoting sustainability with the creation of the Sustainability Assessment Framework. Its primary purpose is to evaluate and understand operator efforts related to social and environmental sustainability within the mobile industry. The framework aims to provide a comparable and leading-edge assessment of sustainability practices. It examines the performance of mobile network operator (MNO) operations and considers their interactions with society. However, while it looks at data about BTS consumption there is no information on DAS or repeater consumption. This could present some exciting opportunities for our WAVETHRU solution.
All these topics, and more, featured in many of the conversations were had during our packed agenda of meetings at our dedicated desk in the Belgium pavilion. Attendees were keen to explore how our solutions including WAVETHRU, WAVEANTENNA, and WAVETRAP can help ensure consistent and reliable connectivity in increasingly technologically advanced environments.
Want to know more on how to enhance user experience and ensure a productive environment with WAVETHRU? Or experience WAVETRAP and WAVEANTENNA innovative solution? Get in touch with us today